The Scalpel in Your Hand

Have we realized that we are hopeless and a tangled mess unless Jesus Christ lives through us?  You have to be born again to grasp this.  Those who aren't may well be perfectly happy how they are; content to do as they see fit.  But once the Divine spark settles on your kindled soul, you cannot remain that way.  Smoke begins to rise and choke you.  It gets a bit too hot to comfortably wait out whatever it is God is doing with you.  Disaster becomes imminent.  The whole kingdom you have erected looks to fall as you realize just what you really have.  It is Christ, King of Kings who has become part of you and He will not let any aspect of you stand for long against His dominion.  And so you will see that this and that must go, not because you are rule bound but because you know with Christ there they are no good.  Before they all seemed perfectly acceptable and perhaps even noble but now they are dirty and in the end sinister.  The world looks upon your silly changes as a bit diabolical; if not odd.  But you know they are the next stage in walking with Christ fully.   Given the potential outcomes, you cannot wait another day with these things hanging to you.  It is impossible for the light of Christ to shine brightly enough that the hard cases might be drawn to the real God if you do not jettison the old ways, old values, old interests.   The proof of your transformation is your growing adherence to the lifestyle found in the Sermon on the Mount.  It will not be you bringing this about and that will be certain; it will be Jesus Christ working in you.  To delay giving the Lord full sway in you will make it tougher for those needing Christ near you to gain Him.  A thorny hedge blocking entrance into a lovely garden is of value if you must keep certain enemies out but if you are the thorny hedge because you have blocked out Christ from you and the way into the Kingdom is barricaded off by your behavior and attitudes...take up the scalpel in your own hand and surgically remove immediately the place of rebellion in you.  God will not do this work for you.  You must do it.  But when you do, you will find the greatest of miracles happening.  Out of you will flow rivers of Living Water and the world at your doorstep will finally see what it is to drink and never thirst again.

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away.   Matthew 18:8 NIV