The Strictest Discipline
June 29, 2014
If your right hand causes you to sin,
cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of
your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell —Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must
cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your
walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are many things that
are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot
do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says
that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.” The
principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit
humankind.
When God changes you through
regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual
rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are
a hundred and one things that you dare not do— things that would be sin for
you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the
unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How
absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed
life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s
sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus
Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things
that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see
that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life
initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus
gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life— “You shall be perfect, just as your
Father in heaven is perfect.”
(Taken from Oswald Chambers – “My Utmost
for His Highest” June 29)