chop it off?

³⁸ John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.” ³⁹ Jesus replied, “Don’t stop him. No one who does powerful acts in my name can quickly turn around and curse me. ⁴⁰ Whoever isn’t against us is for us. ⁴¹ I assure you that whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will certainly be rewarded. ⁴² “As for whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to trip and fall into sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and to be thrown into the lake. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to fall into sin, chop it off. It’s better for you to enter into life crippled than to go away with two hands into the fire of hell, which can’t be put out. ⁴⁵ If your foot causes you to fall into sin, chop it off. It’s better for you to enter life lame than to be thrown into hell with two feet. ⁴⁷ If your eye causes you to fall into sin, tear it out. It’s better for you to enter God’s kingdom with one eye than to be thrown into hell with two. ⁴⁸ That’s a place where worms don’t die and the fire never goes out. ⁴⁹ Everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good; but if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? Maintain salt among yourselves and keep peace with each other.” (Mark 9:38-50, CEB)

How many people do you see with one hand, or one foot or one eye because they chopped it off or tore it out?

Does this mean that we aren’t sinning? I doubt it…

We get so caught up on saying that other people are sinning, Jesus is telling us here that we should really focus on our own sin rather than the sins of others.

And we shouldn’t stop someone from helping others because they worship a little different than us or they aren’t doing the healing the way we think they should.

We are all in this together. And just because I sin different than you do doesn’t mean you don’t sin. And it also doesn’t mean that we aren’t following the same God.

Let us light up the darkness by getting along and not trying to tear each other apart.

Love People. Love God.