“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, 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 5:29.
Preparation for heaven requires sacrifice, a willingness to give up anything that is leading us into sin. It is tempting to say, “Oh, I will just control it better. I will spend less time watching television. I will be more selective in what I watch.”
Or, “I still want to keep going to this place. I will just try to be more careful in how much money I spend there.” Or, “I know this magazine influences me to have more interest in worldly things. But I still like it. I will just try to skip some of the more worldly articles.”
Yet, to use perhaps a takeoff on the recent words of our president, we need to use a machete, and not a scalpel, when cutting out of our lives those things that are harmful. Where is the sacrifice that was seen in earlier days, when holy men of God “were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth”? Hebrews 11:38, 39.
Why do we seem so unwilling to give up—yes, cast away—what God has said is not good for us? Will we be ready to be among those who “loved not their lives unto the death”? Revelation 12:11. Our choices now, either of willingness to give up our treasured sins, or of unwillingness to relinquish them, are the answer to that question.
