Maimed

I want to issue you a challenge. The following is taken from "My Utmost For His Highest", a devotional by Oswald Chambers.

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." Matthew 5:30

Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but - If your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off. There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but, says Jesus, if it hinders you in following His precepts, cut it off. This line of discipline is the sternest one that ever struck mankind.

...The unspiritual person says - Whatever is wrong in that? How absurd you are! ... But it is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in God's sight than to be lovely in man's sight and lame in God's.

Think seriously today about all those things you do that may be "perfectly legitimate" by the world's standards, but hinder you in following God. Movies that may be funny but not pure, books that may be an "innocent escape", jokes or conversation topics that are okay with everyone around you but don't glorify God, music, artwork, TV, anything that draws our hearts towards earthly things and leaves it there. I'm not saying we cut out everything in our lives that isn't EWTN and KLOVE and "Lives of the Saints", for even Jesus had a job as a carpenter, spent time with His family, and ate and drank and laughed with His friends and with sinners too. But maybe we're too cavalier with how we spend our time and energy. What if the world saw us, and what they saw pointed them to something greater? What if we could look at truly everything we did and say, For the greater glory? It will be crazy to the world. It will be crazy even to a Christian world. Think about it.