Love to watch science fiction movies or TV programs like Star Wars or Star Trek – anything about space travel seems to always catch my interest. This one movie, Gravity, had a scene in it where George Clooney, an experienced NASA astronaut, made a very difficult decision – disconnect the tether that kept he and Sandra Bullock, a research scientist sent to repair the Hubble, connected. Floating in space, entangled in prematurely deployed parachute line, Sandra Bullock’s life was saved as a result of George Clooney’s course of action. Disconnecting the tether meant he would drift out into space, run out of oxygen, and die.
Jesus Christ posed this same kind of decision to his disciples when he told them, “If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, and if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It’s better to enter heaven without an eye or a hand than to find yourself in hell.”
Could be wrong, but I don’t really think Jesus was using some scare tactic to get his disciples to live a holy life for God. It’s more like He was telling them what can really happen to a person who believes in God but neglects to make right an area of compromise in their life – almost like giving his friends a heads-up about how things will really turn out (no sugar coating for sure).
Someone made a comment, “You’re trying to brainwash people into believing God.” Have been thinking about that, “Yes indeed, if you want to use those words." The word of God washes away all the dust and dirt (in a metaphorical sense) we Christians pick up in our day to day lives. We eagerly read the Bible, knowing the Holy Spirit takes those words to not only clean us, but to feed our hungry hearts. We don’t just live on food, we live on every word that comes from God – of course the Bible is the best place to find them.
Love to go to church and hear people preach out of the Bible or fellowship with other Christians who actually live their lives based on their understanding of God’s words – even the more difficult principles.
Perhaps the hardest thing for any of us is to not compromise our values, especially in this day and age. Reading the Old Testament, it’s sad to learn how God’s chosen people, Israel, veered so far off course from the Lord’s purpose, resulting in catastrophic consequences in the land of milk and honey. It’s not like they weren’t forewarned what might happen if they ignored God and went their own way. Perhaps most of the children of Israel didn’t even have a clue who God is, much less what He desires for His people. Pre Jesus Christ, Israel ended up more estranged from God than all their neighbors, who never even had an interest in this Jewish monotheistic deity. It wasn't just a religious thing, either. Right before Israel was dissolved as a nation, as it was in King David and King Solomon's time, sacrificing your kids by burning them in a fire, was quite common place.
Sorting through all the historical stuff, prophesies, geneologies, inspiring stories, etc. in the Old Testament, reading between the lines, you can see it’s all very much like our present day Christian church, or even our very own walk with the Lord.
For a person who wants to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, like my Mom was, the only alternative to compromise is understanding the word of God (the Holy Spirit, as well as other brothers and sisters in the Lord, can also graciously help us in this area), and taking the appropriate course of action, with God’s wisdom, of course. Getting God’s wisdom is pretty straight forward – we just ask him for it, and He gives it to us liberally. The hardest part is in the “doing” of God’s word. But, even with that, the Lord is right there to encourage and help us to do the right thing. How easy can it be to hack off your own arm or gouge out one of your eyeballs?
Cutting off a relationship, or deciding to stop hanging out with certain people, or determining to not do certain things anymore, can be extremely painful and difficult to accomplish. We can’t forget that all things are possible with God, and He provides all our needs according to His riches in glory through Christ our Lord – even when we desperately need His help to carry out difficult decisions.
We can do it – get rid of the high places, the idols, the compromising relationships, and desist from knowingly going into places and things we know in our heart of hearts are uncool with our loving Aba Father. It's not that we should be afraid of anyone, be afraid to go anywhere, or be afraid to do anything - what I thought were all "churchy does and don'ts," in retrospect, were warnings of rabbit holes up ahead (really getting tired of falling down so many rabbit holes, over and over again, some of which wasted years of my time, and all of which would make Alice's look like a PG version).
What can happen when we follow Jesus with all we’ve got and all we are? Hope you want to find out – I sure do.
