Now for the Real surgery

"If your eye offends you pluck it out…"

Wait it gets better…

"If your hand causes you to sin…cut it off." (Matthew 18:8-9)

There’s one for the promise box.

So I ask myself, since unfortunately, this has become a relevant scripture in my own life…How long do you think it would take to do that? I mean plucking an eye out sounds like it would take some effort and work, outside of sounding disgusting. And oh, how your flesh would revile…so badly that it might even take you awhile to decide you were going to cut that hand off…even if it had gangrene…even if you could see it spreading to the rest of your body! You’d probably do it, but it might take a minute to get up the nerve…to save you…from you.

So I sit here contemplating. Is there an offering God does not multiply? You may think that’s a waste of time, Jesus said, "there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life." (Luke 18:29-30) Notice there was no sin in that list, or in any list that talks about God multiplying our offerings (Luke 6:38, 2 Corinthians 8 or 9). This is the sacrifice that no one wants to talk about…the blood Jesus sweat from His brow that’s swept under the proverbial rug.

It’s what we give up on the way of dying to self, it’s what we do to make sure we’re not "entangled again to a yoke of bondage and the sin which so easily besets us." (Galatians 5:1) We lie to people, sinners smarter than us, who say, "Look, I’m not ready to give up my sin!" And they’re not, and we say that doesn’t matter and IT does! That sinner’s not going to trick God the way we tricked them into praying some prayer. You do have to be sick of it, you do have to have faith or at least hope, that God is stronger than your sin…Or it won’t work. And that stuff you give up, God does not multiply back to you…You’re letting go for the very intent that it’s NOT coming back. You’re deliberately turning away the devil’s presents for God’s, because when you take their presents you’ll welcome their presence.

So Jacob got the blessing. He welcomed the Presence of God saying, "I’m not going to let you go until you bless me!" (Genesis 32:26) But he walked with a limp for THE REST OF HIS LIFE, which was long, by the way. So, what is this "hip" the angel of the Lord "touched"? Well, it’s what gets touched in all of our lives…our pride. A hip out of socket definitely put a damper on that pimp-daddy swagger Jacob had going on. Hip also comes from a word which means "to bend," (http://www.dictionary.com) and sometimes we call ourselves being "flexible" when really we have loose morals, which is why God had to "tighten Jacob up." The name "Jacob" comes from a word meaning "deceiver" and in order to help Jacob stop "bending the truth" God changed his name to "Israel," which means "He that striveth with God" and, "to fight or to contend."

Another interesting item that came up on the Online Etymology dictionary (www.etymonline.org) was "hip" as an interjection. We know the term "hip, hip hooray" but it was at one time used as a "cry to attack Jews." Before blessing him, God attacked that which used to attack Jacob. Maybe instead of a "heel," Jacob had an Achilles’ hip. Jacob learned how to fight evil instead of using evil to win his fights (as he did with his brother Esau—Genesis 27) by learning how to wrestle with God.

One thing I know for sure, whatever the price of righteousness (being right with the Lord), there is no comparison with the cost of disobedience (thank you Pastor Robb Thompson) and the presents of the devil are no match for the Presence of God. So, I choose Life and I smile, until my eyes fall once again, upon the inevitable knife.