“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into Hell.”
Matthew 27:30
Jesus is teaching His followers to look beyond their immediate circumstances and to think long term. He’s not just telling them how to avoid sin. He knew they would still sin sometimes and He knew that salvation would ultimately be secured for them by God’s grace, not their own ability to avoid sin. So why the talk about radical methods of sin prevention? Was Jesus really advocating for self-mutilation? Of course not. He was teaching a multi-layered lesson here.
Jesus was explaining that short-lived pleasures and comforts in this life are relatively unimportant compared to a person’s eternal destiny.
“For what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his life?”
Mark 8:36
This theme runs through all of His teaching and is the backbone of the Kingdom Program as He taught it. Whether He was talking about sin, money, family relationships, position, reputation, status, security, or physical comfort, He frequently emphasized the temporary nature and relative unimportance of the things in this life. Instead, He turned His followers’ attention to the eternal – to Heaven and Hell, and, most importantly to honoring, fearing, loving, and obeying the Father. Over and over He tried to teach them to think beyond this world to what comes after we leave this life. That, I believe, is what the Kingdom Program is really about.
Yes, it is important to avoid sin. Please don’t think I am dismissing sin as insignificant. Sin has consequences beyond what we can see and predict. Sin, all sin, even the small sin we might overlook and tolerate, is an offense to God. It is rebellion against God. That always matters. Even the sin you think you got away with, the sin nobody else knows about, the sin that “didn’t hurt anybody”. Yes, even that sin matters to God. He knows about it. In truth, none of us gets away with anything. God’s omniscience means He really does know everything. But avoiding sin is only part of the point. Being mindful of eternity, of the Kingdom of God, is the other part of the lesson.
So what should we do? Should we go to the extreme of cutting off hands and gouging out eyes? No. Instead, we should learn to think differently. Here are some steps to follow:
1. Focus on the eternal consequences of even the small, mundane aspects of life. Turn our attention away from our present pleasure or suffering and remember everything in this life is temporary. We’ll learn more about this later, especially when we get to Matthew 6:19 and learn what Jesus taught about storing up your treasure in Heaven.
2. Avoid temptation. Stay away from the temptations that have caused you to stumble in the past. Learn from your mistakes!
3. Trust God! He loves you. He wants good things for you. His commands against sin are never meant to deprive you of something good. They’re to protect you from something bad. God knows the far-reaching consequences of every sin. We do not.
4. Keep your eyes on eternity by staying focused on the Word, not on the world. “But I don’t have time!” you say. Are you sure? How much time do you spend reading, listening to, or studying the Bible? Compare that to the amount of time you spend on sports, hobbies, the internet, watching TV/movies, listening to music, watching/reading/listening to political “news”? “I don’t have time to read the Bible” is an excuse that is almost never true. You have the time. You just choose to spend it on other things. If you have time for entertainment, you have time for the Bible. You can put the YouVersion Bible app on your phone and read the Bible anytime anywhere. It’s free and it even has an audio function that will read the Bible to you.
Just like Jesus commands you to reconcile with the brothers and sisters to whom you owe a debt, apology, or atonement, He commands in these verses that you stay in relationship with God by seeking to avoid sin. Your attention must be on God and His Kingdom, on your relationship with Him, not on the things of this world. You cannot focus on two things at once. By keeping your mind on God, on eternity, on the Kingdom, Jesus is turning your attention away from the things of the world that may tempt you to sin.
a surrendered life 