Weekly Devotion - "YOUR RIGHT ARM" - July 6, 2010

-from Lenae, GEMS Training Manager

YOUR RIGHT ARM

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Matthew 5:30

I’m attached to my right arm. Literally. It’s my go-to, preferred arm in all that I do. Unless you’re left-handed, the same is probably true for you.


A few years ago my Aunt Caroline needed to make a choice with her right arm. Either she kept her arm and the cancer would continue to spread throughout her body, or she could allow surgeons to cut it off at the elbow and live. She chose the later. Cutting off her right arm literally saved her life.


The same is true for you and me spiritually. Jesus said, And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell (Matthew 5:30).


In his devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes, “Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then ‘cut it off.’ The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.”


Chambers reminds us that just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. There is a time when even good things must be cut out of our lives if they deviate our eyes from being fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). He writes, “There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them.”


It’s perfectly legitimate to shop, to hang out with friends, to surf the Internet, to text or talk on the phone, to go on vacation, to remodel your house, etc. But if one or all of these things keep us from concentrating on God they need to go! We need to cut them out of our life!

Eugene Peterson puts it this way in The Message, And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump (Matthew 5:30, MSG).


Like me, maybe you’ve heard passionate people who really want something badly, say, “I’d give my right arm for ___________________ to happen.” Or, “I’d give my right arm if I could see ___________________.”


To feed the fire in our hearts, Jesus is asking us to give our right arm. Passionate disciples count the cost (Luke 14:26-27, 33) and cut out everything in their life that keeps them from loving God and zealously serving others.


PASSION Step: What seemingly good things need to be cut out of your life so you can be a passionate disciple of Christ?

It is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear

lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s.

Oswald Chambers

Weekly Devotion - "FIRST LOVE" - June 28, 2010

-from Lenae, GEMS Training Manager

FIRST LOVE

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

Revelation 2:4

The church in Ephesus was filled with doers. They did good deeds, worked hard, and persevered. They were people of principle. They endured hardships for the sake of Christ, couldn’t stomach wickedness and sin, and even tested apostles to see if they were men of integrity or imposters. In all these admirable qualities that you may be even be longing for in your own church today, they did not grow weary (Revelation 2:2-3).


Do you think they were shocked when Christ gave them correction instead of commendations? He said: Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love (Revelation 2:4).


When Dr. Helen Roseveare was serving as a medical missionary in Nebobongo a rainstorm in the dry season soaked the few items that were contained in her thatched roof home. She sat “cross-legged on the pillow, with the umbrella over [her] head, an open Bible on [her] knees, a flashlight in [her] hand . . . – and wept.”


Thirty-six hours later while she swept the house, dried out the mats, and mopped the books she felt a voice asking her, “Do you love Me more than these?”


In her book, Living Sacrifice – Willing to be Whittled as an Arrow, she writes, “There was nothing wrong with having pictures on the walls, mats on the floors, or books on the shelves, as long as they were not important in my life. If they began to take the place of my ‘first love,’ they would have to go.”


What or who is your and my first love? Is it financial security, good health, achievements, recognition, or family? Is it hard work in GEMS, good deeds within your community, or perseverance in the church? If the Spirit were to ask you right now, “Do you love Me more than these?” What would the “these” be for you?


If we’ve fallen from the height of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Revelation 2:5a, Mark 12:30), we must heed the course correction that Christ gave to the church in Ephesus: Repent and do the things you did at first (Revelation 2:5b).


To refuse to do so comes with serious consequences. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place (Revelation 2:5b. See Revelation 1:20). To return to your first love is to receive an eternal promise: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God (Revelation 2:7).


PASSION Step: Feed the fire by guarding your heart and keeping Jesus Christ your first love.

Jesus desires your love more than all of your service and obedience combined.

Don’t put your work before your worship; give Him your heart.

Anne Graham Lotz