How Seriously He Takes Your Freedom

but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. (Matthew 5:28-30, WEB)

Jesus says that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart, and then he says that if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better to lose one part than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. The language is violent, and it is meant to be. Jesus is not asking men to mutilate themselves; he is telling us how urgent this is, how much is genuinely at stake in what we do with our eyes and our imagination.

We tend to treat lust as a minor thing, a private habit that harms no one, a small tax we pay in secret and assume we can afford. He treats it as a matter of life and death. That gap between how lightly we hold it and how heavily he holds it is worth sitting in for a moment, because most of us have been managing this as if it were a bad habit rather than a fire that could take the house.

Read rightly, this warning is also a measure of how much he wants you free. He would rather you take drastic, costly, inconvenient action now than let this quietly consume you over years. The severity is not anger at you; it is his refusal to watch you be slowly eaten by something you keep excusing. He is on your side in this, more fiercely than you are on your own.

So what is your right eye. What is the app, the account, the route home, the hour alone that you keep making excuses for, the thing you have promised yourself you will handle later. He is giving you permission, even a command, to cut it off and not look back, and to accept the cost of doing it. Ask him tonight which thing he means, and then be honest about whether you already know.