Cut it out.

Matthew 18:8-9

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Jesus didn’t intend for all of us to wander the earth blind and crippled.  He uses the hyperbole here to instruct just how important lifestyle management can be.  This past week I did a sermon entitled The Spirit that Rescues and in it I laid out that we are not to carry the burden of our sin struggle on our own.  That it is a burden that is spiritual thus should be left to the Holy Spirit to battle.  However, as it says in Romans 8, we will still have the limitations of sin.  That takes me to this blog today.  What are you doing proactively to live a life that honors Christ.

1) EVALUATE – We need to evaluate ourselves regularly.  We need to be checking ourselves against the fruit of the Spirit found in Gal 5:22.  How is your walk with God?  How is your relationship with others?

2) ESTABLISH – What in your life needs adjusting/cut away.  Are you watching too much TV?  Are you surrounding yourself with those who gossip?  Are you eating the WHOLE bag of chips?

3) EXCISE – Have the courage to cut it out.  Get rid of it.

4) ENGAGE – Now with the new time/energy/resources you have engage God with more of your time/energy /resources.