Matthew 5:29a-30 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away…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.
Jesus was not advocating self-harm in the famous sermon on the mount. He did not mean to literally gouge out the eye that sins and cut off the hand that steals. If it were so, He would not have healed the ear of Malchus, the servant of the High Priest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter struck the ear of the servant when the horde came to arrest Jesus. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him (Luke 22:51). Jesus did not say, let the ear that heeded to gossip be brutally severed. If it were so, all of us would be blind, deaf, lame and dumb. He touched and healed the servant even at that ghastly hour of being betrayed by his friend to be crucified on the cross.
The teaching of Jesus advises us to kill the desire that turns the sensory organ into an instrument of sin and darkness. The metaphorical allegory to pluck, cut and shut anything that corrupts not only the body but also destroys the soul can be best understood from an eagle. An adult eagle retreats to a mountaintop, where over a five-month period it knocks off its beak by banging it against a rock, plucks out its talons, and then plucks out its feathers in order to produce regrowth whereby it renews its life span by another 30 or 40 years.
Wild unbridled sensory organs lead to hell:
1. Pluck: Pull out the power plug from the devise that is luring the eyes to watch profanity and pornography. The Holy Spirit will only convict us not to waste time in entertainment that drags us to hell fire. He will not turn the TV off for us. We have to put the device away or switch off Netflix. Pluck out the plumage of wrong habits.
2. Shut: Shut the door of your ears and heart to information that has no eternal benefit. Jesus advised us to end the conversation that hisses gossip into our ears and to bridle the tongue that wants to lash out in anger. Let there be filters over our ears and a bridle on our tongue.
- Severe: Severe emotional entanglements and connections that entice sinful lifestyle. It is better to be alone than to hang out with those who would lead us to hell fire. Severe wrong connections.
An eagle goes through temporary pain to renew its lifespan, likewise short-term pain results in long-term gain and saves the soul from eternal damnation.
Matthew 5:29b It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Prayer: God of Purity, I need your supernatural strength and discernment to say “no” to virulent habits and relationships that mislead me to hell. May my sensory organs be instruments of light and not instruments of destruction. Amen.
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