Tag Archives: adultery

Heart surgery

 

Jesus used an extreme metaphor to show how important living a holy life is:

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” – Matthew 5:29-30

 

Recently, a Chinese teenager known as “Little Wang” took this advice literally and cut off his hand when he thought he couldn’t control his internet addiction. Is that the approach Jesus really meant for fighting pervasive sin?

 

In the context of his message, Jesus was speaking about the physical act of adultery. But he ups the ante by saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Vs 27-28)
The Pharisees would have considered the lust of the eyes as a minor sin and the physical act of adultery as a major sin. But Jesus says sin is sin and its source is the heart.

 

James tells us that we are “tempted and dragged away by (our) own evil desires…that battle within us.” Our friendship with the world makes us enemies of God, an “adulterous people.” The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life that come from the world establish themselves in the heart and flow through the eye and the hand. We could pluck out both eyes and cut off both hands, but it would not stop our heart from sinning.

 

What are we to do? Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Temptation is not a sin, but providing a place for it to rest in our heart is.

 

I wonder how much sin starts with a simple curiosity. A tempting internet link begging our click doesn’t have to be particularly ‘naughty’ to be sin. The temptation to waste our lives viewing every cute video, reading every tidbit of news, catching up with the latest sports scores or the latest diet and exercise tips (the list goes on) all create temptations that can lead our hearts away from God. ‘Cutting off’ our eyes and hands from curious temptations keeps our hearts from being compromised.

 

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, Hinds Feet in High Places, the heart of the main character Much Afraid had become entangled with all sorts of irrational fears and corrupted thinking. The master had to surgically rip away what was strangling the lifeline of her heart. What we need today is not to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands. What we need is heart surgery.

 

Give me a pure heart, O Lord, a heart that looks only to you.

 

 

Cheating ourselves – cheating others

What really happens when we believe lies? We allow ourselves to temporarily ‘forget’ the truth we know. We suspend the reality of truth in order to believe a make-believe lie. In the end, we betray and cheat ourselves and others, even God.

I don’t think most of us purposely betray ourselves or those we love. Do you think anyone would so brashly cuddle the love of their life while holding hands with another lover? After all, the nature of love is to be patient, kind, self-less, humble, serving, honoring of others. It is not easily angered and rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

But what happens when we suspend or forget love? We say we love this person, but our love for self-indulgence, our hobbies, “my time”, work, or good works says, “I love this more.”

God points this out repeatedly. Throughout history He commands us to have no idols. He hates idolatry, in fact so much so that He often equates it with adultery. He compares putting other things before Him to sleeping with a harlot. He says, “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” (Isaiah 42:8) We may justify ourselves by claiming we have no idols, no little statues that we bow down to. Yet we are quick to share Him with so much else.

We are called to be Holy as He is Holy, but if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we believe lies that our love of the world will satisfy us more than God Himself? I don’t think we often consciously choose to disobey and betray God. It seems when we are too comfortable, we live in a state of semi-slumber, half awake but also half asleep. God says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1

Just like someone who nudges you during a lecture or sermon to get you to wake up, let’s invite the Holy Spirit to nudge us throughout the day if we are found falling asleep. Let us wake up and remember our true love.