DAILY MANNA
SATURDAY 3RD AUGUST, 2019
WISDOM OF CHOICE
TEXT: MATTHEW 5:27-32
KEY VERSE: “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 5:30).
A Christian man who just started new job in a brewery was asked how appropriate it was for a believer to work in a brewery. “I think it’s all right,” he answered. “Do you then take alcohol?”, the enquirer further asked. “No, no, no” came the answer, “it is against my Christian conviction to take alcohol. And mark you, I am not in the production unit, I am just in the marketing section”.
In our text, the Lord taught that committing adultery is not just the “very act” but lusting after the opposite sex in the heart. “Offending” right eye must therefore be plucked out rather than the whole body being cast into hell fire. Same goes for the right hand. Immediately, the Lord warns against divorce because to divorce one’s spouse and marry another amounts to adultery.
The finality of Christ’s words are incontrovertible. Heaven and earth shall pass away but the words of the Lord shall never pass away. Every Christian has the choice to either follow and obey the word of God implicitly and be saved or trifle with it and be lost in eternity. Christ never minced words in making it clear through various parables that many of His followers would be lost except they “watch… and pray always, that (they) may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36). The many demands and pressures in a man’s life sometimes make it difficult to give thoughtful consideration to matters of life here and hereafter.
The “cloud of witnesses” who went before us “obtained a good report” through faith. They had their problems but they overcame. As we make up our minds to follow through, we shall join them sooner or later in that glorious city of God.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: A wise Christian lives daily with heaven in view.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: EZRA 4–6
