In my morning study of the Sermon, I come again to Matthew 5:27-30: You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery' But I say to you everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out * * * * * it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Clearly, that is not meant literally, but since my eye never lusted for a woman and my hand never sought to steal, I've never stayed on that for long, never studied it closely. (Apparently, I tend toward scrupulosity...or lazy...when something doesn't apply to me.)
But this morning it became obvious why we need continuously study the Sermon. This morning brought a blinding glimmer of possibility: It is our thoughts that must needs be plucked out, cut off, turned around...changed in a word.
Obviously, it is not our eye that lusts, that is simply used as a clarifying analogy for change, to pluck it out and throw it away. Same goes with our hand which is not the sinner, it is our thought that directed the hand. Cut it off and throw it away, an analogy to clarify for us that we must change our way of thinking.
Takes me back to an early BFO: Upgrade your thoughts, you upgrade your problems. Who's kidding whom, stripped of airs, that is...change your mind.
K.I.S.S.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment