Oct 16 - Matthew 5:29

Jesus said,

If your right eye causes

you to sin, tear it out

and throw it away;

it is better for you to

lose one of your members

than for your whole body

to be thrown into hell.

Matthew 5:29

"Mom, why aren't there more one-eyed men,"

That was the question that Pastor Fran's son asked one day. And in the context of "lusting in one's heart" and pornography, statistics reveal that even in the church we ought to be a nation of cyclopses. (Male and female.)

The scriptural warnings are dire ...

·       let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. - Heb 13:4

·       Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers ... will inherit the kingdom of God. - 1 Cor 6:10

·       For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure ... has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. - Eph 5:5

·       For this is the will of God ... that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. - 1 Thes 4:3-5

·       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. - Jesus himself in Matt 5:29

Ouch.

Those are frightening words in a culture as perverse as pagan Rome ... and with pornography as quick as a click away.

Freedom begins with an even more important word from Jesus, though. His very first sermon and definitive message: "repent and believe the Good News."

The Good News is forgiveness and freedom. As its says in 1 John 1:8-9, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

That's the freedom! But it begins with Jesus' first word, "repent."

·       Repenting is turning away from our sin and turning toward God.

·       Repenting is turning off the tempting computer, and returning to the simple, wonderful gift of our wives.

·       Repenting is valuing real relationships over images that are nothing more than seductive lies. (Sure these images have a power. Men's brains, especially, are wired to be stimulated this way. But ultimately pornography is a blinding lie. They makes us less. They make our real relationships less. It eats a slow hole from within. It destroys.)

Repent. Renew. Restore. Rejoice more fully.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who hopes he doesn't see more

Matthew 5:29, one-eyed people at church ...

but more 1 John 1:9, repentant freedom fighters

with better real relationships