Preserving Life - Salt pt. 1

Mark 9:43-48. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched’.”

Jesus is passionate about being a source of preservation to right living that He teaches that it would be better for mutilation, then to allow for the sin to continue and loose it all just so that wrong living might NOT continue. Jesus also gives us that “how to” in his teaching.

Look at how Jesus addresses the “causes”: If your hand causes, if your foot causes, if eye causes…Jesus is a tough man on sin and is not willing to compromise on sin. One might ask, “How can I be tough on sin?” The answer is look at the “causes” of sin and remove them. You may have to remove them to the extreme of complete separation. Thus, in order to preserve…one must be tough on sin and be willing to take the steps to remove the causes.

Let me ask you…are you preserving the lives around you? Are you tough on your own sin? If you are series about preserving the lives around you, … then your are not living in sin, you are not allowing your friends to twist the time you are together into a time of sin or compromised living. A Jesus perspective in a Christ-Follower is to be tough on sin and preserve the innocence, the right living, the holy essence of being a believer.

Here is the question? Are you preserving the people around you? If you are, then your family, your friends, and your relationships say, “I am a better person because you are in it.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:9-13, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

This is what is means to be salt that preserves. Doing my best to be a source of preservation! You know I love ya, Don