When it comes to dealing with temptation and sin, Jesus does not approach it lightly or use gentle language. Jesus taught that even looking at a woman to lust for her is adultery in the heart (Matt. 5:28). Then, Jesus commands to take aggressive, severe, unyielding measures to eradicate sin and temptation from one’s life.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you” (Matt. 5:29-30).
Jesus was not demanding that one literally maim his body, but He was calling His followers to pluck out, cut off and completely expunge anything that “causes you to sin.” Too often we minimize sin and temptation.
Too often we have become desensitized to it. Too often we give in to our selfish desires, perhaps thinking one time isn’t so bad. But, Jesus said that yielding to the flesh in this life will lead one “to be cast into hell” eternally. Sin is dangerous! Let us do everything that we can to “resist the devil” (Jas. 4:7) and every “sin which so easily ensnares us” (Heb. 12:1)!
