Deformed or Reformed?

Let me be myself for a moment—ornery that is! My dad is the “perfect Christian;” he has followed Jesus’ word to the letter. In Mark 9:47 Jesus said, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Dad had his left eye removed to make him a holy person. Perhaps someday I hope to some day have that kind of obedience too; I debating to have a hand or foot cut off. I could really use a word of encouragement; any suggestions as to what would be best and make me a truly holy person?

Now seriously, for those who don’t know my dad, he is a man of faith that I respect a great deal; he has shown me what it really means to be a man of God. Several years ago he lost his left eye due to cancer, and he would tell you that being without that eye has done nothing to make him a more holy person. Yes, through that time in lives of our family God streached our faith, but the physical loss of an eye in and of itself does not make you a righteous person (and for that matter if God had done a miracle and spared dad’s eye that wouldn’t have caused any of us to necessarily live righteously either).

The fact of the matter is that it is just as easy to lust with one eye as it is two. I mean if missing one eye makes you holy then how much holier will you be if you gouge out an eye and cut off a hand? You can still steal with only one hand or find your way into trouble on just one foot. Jesus is not telling his followers to deform their bodies.

When it comes to sin we always seem to get caught up in the externals. We cannot do anything to earn God’s favor. All the good things we do, together with all the hands and feet we cut off or eyes we pluck out, will do nothing to impress God. Our self-made righteousness is useless.

• [6] All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away . . . [8] Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
  Isaiah 64:6, 8 (NIV)

We can’t make ourselves holy because living a righteous life free from the entanglement of sin is a heart issue. Only God can reshape our hearts. Only God can cut out our sinful desires and replace them with the desire to live a life pleasing to Him. So let’s stop trying to make it with man-made acts of righteousness. Let’s allow God to transform us from the inside out.