Cut it Off!!

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.

Mark 9:43-45


What does it really mean to "cut it off"? In this passage, they use the hand and the foot (and the eye if you read later). How important are the hands and the feet to us? If we were to lose our hand, our whole life will change. The same goes for one of our feet. We would be crippled and be confined to a wheelchair or crutches for life.

If something causes you to sin, you must cut it off. Even if it means that it will change your life. Let me share with you a few of my personal experiences with this.

The two biggest things that really cause me to sin are lust and pride along with many others too. If I could say what the source of what was causing me to sin lust wise, it would have been my laptop. I spent most of my days on my laptop and in turn, allowed myself to have more time to be tempted. Every single time, I thought it could summon up my own will power to control myself but I failed every time. I knew I needed to get rid of my laptop but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was so dependent on it, until it died on me. Through God's Mercy, my laptop stopped working and I couldn't get it back even under warranty. The funny thing is, I wasn't really all that sad about it. My friend was able to help me back up my harddrive and actually, my 4th Year Project was all backed up too. So in reality, it didn't impact me at all.

After my laptop died on me, my life literally changed. I never spent nearly as much time on the computer and I felt that those lustful desires weren't as frequent. That was one of the things I needed to cut off. I'm not saying that I am perfect, heck, I still fall into that temptation quite a bit actually. However, it was one of the things that I NEEDED to stop using because it was causing me to sin.

Another situation is to do with pride. The biggest thing I took pride in was my reputation in Judo. For those who don't know me, I did Judo for 12 years and have my black belt. The reputation that I established myself around Saskatchewan and even in some parts in Canada as a model athlete and fairly good coach. So I had a lot of respect.

Well, it soon went to my head. I took pride in it and it actually became and idol to me. God spent 2 years breaking me out of Judo. He knew the only way to break me out of Judo was to make it so I didn't have enough time to do it. He did that. Both in Calgary and over this summer. It wasn't until this summer that I decided that enough was enough. Right there and then, I retired from Judo. Twelve years of my life, the the central foundation that I built for myself in Judo was literally torn down and my life was changed. Judo was causing me to sin and I needed to cut it off. Actually now, my mind is so clear because now I can rebuild that central foundation based on God. That was the HUGE plus side of it all.

I tell you now, pride, is and will always be an issue for me. Right now, I am constantly trying to keep myself humble so I won't be prideful. Actually, even now, with the amount of time I spend on the computer, I am actually boarderline cutting the internet off from my life. Doing that would definitely change my life and I am very hesitant to do it. Lets hope that by reducing the time I spend on the computer will help with that.

So what am I trying to say in this? If something is causing you to sin, you have to "cut it off". It may seem like it is impossible but, I tell you now, nothing is more liberating than just letting it go. Just from experience, God will most likely press on your heart to let something go if it has been causing you to sin.

Personally, I think this all links to Simplicity. Cutting it off makes life so simple because that is where we really begin to place our trust in God (I'll discuss more of that in future posts). Do you trust God enough to take care of you?

I will leave you with one more question. Is money causing you to sin? This is one of the things God has been really hitting me with and I will do another post in the near future.

God Bless you all!!