Daily Verse: Mark 9:43-47

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell…”

 

The above words were spoken by Jesus to the disciples and they convey a heavy message: If there is anything in our lives that cause us to sin and separate us from the Savior, we need to get rid of it immediately. For the consequences of living a life apart from Christ are serious business…so serious that Jesus uses the example of physically maiming oneself to avoid being found in the group destined for hell. And as we see in the words spoken by Jesus in verse 48, hell is an eternal place…no end, no let up, no days off…”where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’”. Pushing sinful things out of our lives to live a life for Christ is not an easy task, especially since we are so good at rationalizing the “bad” in our lives. “I am an adult, I can handle the content”…”I was right and they were wrong, so my reaction was appropriate”…”They will get over it, especially when they see how much money I can make”…”It’s alright to be arrogant, after all, I earned it through hard work”. But if we could get just a tiny glimpse of hell, it’s likely that we would immediately spring into a “fire sale” of the bad in our lives, getting rid of anything that stands between us and the Savior. Our salvation is not merit based…if it were, we would fail miserably. But make no mistake, God knows our heart (Luke 16:15) and knows whether or not we are genuinely repentant and truly call his Son our Savior. May we keep these words spoken by Jesus fresh in our minds, reminding ourselves that there should be nothing that stands between us and a repentant heart committed to following the one true Savior! To God be the glory!