Matthew 5.27-30 'Discipline...'

R&R Devotional Bible Study
040 - Matthew 5.27-30
'Discipline...'

'27-You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery'; 28-but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29-But if your right eye make you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30-If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw if from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.'

First off, lust is not explicitly sexual...
-Lust is a deep longing and yearning for something...
-You can lust after power and wealth and anything else, just as you can lust sexually after a person...

But in the context of what we are being told here, lust is used to indicate lusting sexually after someone

As we have been discussing, lusting after someone is akin to ill will/animosity toward someone, which is murder in the heart toward someone...
-Thus, if you are lusting after someone in your heart, you are murdering them in your heart...

Lusting after someone is taking from said person...
-It is desiring pleasure from them to gratify your own pleasure...
-You are coveting what you perceive then can give you...

'29-But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30-If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw if from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.'

When it comes to sin and dealing with sin, we tend to try to make methods of how to cope with sin and deal with sin habits...
-Some go as far as to just say that sin habits are ok so long as we just love God, and do things that are clearly forbidden in Scripture...
-Just look at how same gender relationship are affirmed in modern day 'Christianity', and how even we have women and homosexuals being in 'church' leadership...

Unfortunately there is no simpler answer than simply to say: 'STOP IT!!!'

The problem is that we let our emotions and feelings and experiences get in the way...
-We base our understanding of things off of that which we perceive, and what we alone understand...
-As Ecclesiastes tells us:
'...The eye is not filled with seeing, the ear is not filled with hearing...'

In all reality, we are supposed to be living sacrifices where we deny self daily...disassociate with ourselves...
-Mortification of the flesh...
-Live a disciplined life...
-Both of these things are really foreign to us in our modern culture...

Discipline
-The training of people
-A branch of knowledge

Let us take a look at how the woman perceived the tree in Genesis 3.6:
-She saw the tree was a delight to the eyes
-She saw the tree was good for food
-She saw the tree was desirable to make one wise

She was making deductions based off of her lusts and desires [pragmatism], rather than simply obeying Yahweh...
As 1 John 2.16 puts it:
the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life...

Again, we are to simply 'STOP IT!!!'
-We are not to pursue feelings/pleasure
-Such things are self focused
-Feelings and emotions are to be governed by The Word of Yahweh, and solely focused on Yahweh...

Our emotions are to be kept in check, goverened by The Word of Yahweh
-We are to be renewed in the mind, not conformed to the world...
-Take every thought captive
-Think on that which is holy and pure

Feelings [pleasure] might arise from this, but feelings are not the end goal...
-In all reality, we may never feel Yahweh and/or His glory
-To be honest, I am not even sure what that means to 'feel Yahweh' of 'see the beauty of His glory'
-I do know that we are to obey though, no matter how I feel about it...

This leads us back to being disciplined
-We are not to seek out pleasures in order to satiate our own lusts and desires...

Pleasure is not a primary focus for anything at all..

Pleasure is a strong force that we can be blinded by because we can focus on our own desires rather than praising and worshiping Yahweh...
-Ecclesiastes warns us that everything is meaningless apart from glorifying Yahweh and keeping His commandments [which is the very thesis and closing statement in the book]...
-Also in 1 John 2.15 tells us:
'Do not love the the world, nor the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of The Father is not in him.'

The will
Dependence on Christ
Realizing that we have nothing in and of ourselves [that we have no strength; must be broken of self]

Its not the strong who persevere...
-It is solely through Christ who strengths were anyone perseveres...
-We are given self-control...via The Holy Spirit; hence self control being one of the manifesting works of The Holy Spirit in a person

Maintaining Discipline:
Remembering that we are, in fact, poor in spirit, which ties into the very first thing that Christ says in the sermon on the mount...
-We ought to remember that we have no strength in and of our selves...

The only way to have true strength is to:
-Abide in Christ
-Through prayer
-Being in the Word continually [being renewed in the mind]
-Godly Counsel, gathering of the brethren

We also need to remember that the Word of Yahweh was written for us, and no to us...
-The contents of the Bible are way over our head, and we need Yahweh Himself to allow us to understand...
-As Yahweh says to Habakkuk:
'I am going to show you things that you will not believe, even though I am telling you...'
-We are not to come to the Word of Yahweh trying to find out what it says to us, or what it means to us...
The whole point here is that we need to understand that we are completely dependent upon Yahweh for every single thing, even properly understanding His Word...
-This should humble us, and make us not rely on our own understanding, or our own subjectivity...

We need to stop relying on self, on our feelings, on our experiences...
-We are to rely on Yahweh, through His Word, which can only be done through The Holy Spirit...
-Also...I am not saying 'Let go, and let God...'. That is a wrong thought...

As we are told in Philippians 2.12-13:
We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who is at work in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure

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