MUSINGS - November 03, 2018
GOD FIRST, SELF LAST
Mark 9:42-50
"These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be thrown into the sea with a large stone hung around his neck. "So if your hand causes you to lose your faith, cut it off! It is better for you to enter life disabled than to have two hands and go to hell, to the fire that cannot be put out. If your foot causes you to lose your faith, cut it off! It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. If your eye causes you to lose your faith, tear 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. In hell worms that eat the body never die, and the fire is never put out. Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? Have salt within you, and live in peace with one another."
Jesus gives many parables about the kingdom of God. This is a rare passage where he speaks about hell. He tells his listeners that it would be better to live life maimed than to go to hell where worms that eat the body never die, and the fire is never put out.
I've said it before and I'll repeat myself here. I don't believe that Jesus is being literal here. I believe that he is giving figurative examples of giving up the things that cause us to sin. I believe this because our eyes, hands, and feet do not cause us to sin. Sin is, at its most basic a choice to choose our own desires over the will of God.
No matter how much we desire the object of our sin we must remove it from our life. Anything that we love more than God must be abandoned. In Luke 14:26 Jesus said, "If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples."
I was a boy scout and was taught the Boy Scout Way: God, country, other people, and self. On our list of priorities God must be first and we must be last.
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