DIRECTION OF DISCIPLINE
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off 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 5:30Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but – If
your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off. There
are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going
to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of
the best things you have, but, says Jesus, if it hinders you in
following His precepts, cut it off. This line of discipline is the
sternest one that ever struck mankind.When God alters a man by regeneration, the characteristic of the life
to begin with is that it is maimed. There are a hundred and one
things you dare not do, things that to you and in the eyes of the
world that knows you are as your right hand and your eye, and the
unspiritual person says – Whatever is wrong in that? How absurd you
are! There never has been a saint yet who did not have to live a
maimed life to start with. But it is better to enter into life maimed
and lovely in God’s sight than to be lovely in man’s sight and lame
in God’s. In the beginning Jesus Christ by His Spirit has to check
you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for
everyone else but not right for you. See that you do not use your
limitations to criticize someone else.It is a maimed life to begin with, but in v.48 Jesus gives the
picture of a perfectly full-orbed life – “Ye shall be perfect, as
your heavenly Father is perfect.”