You're welcome but your foot's not!

Mark 9:43{a}

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed….”

Mark 9:45 {a}

“And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame…”

Mark 9:47 {a}

“And if you eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes.”

It has been in the past or in eastern cultures when a person has sinned with a part of their body, that body part has been removed from the person. This type of corporal punishment can be seen in specifically middle eastern countries wherein it is a common theme to cut the hand off of thieves. However I would like to submit to you an alternate application of these verses in the life of a believer. 

      When we examine versus 43 and 45 in the original Greek language, we find that the body parts that are spoken of are the hand and the foot and these are actual body parts. In the old King James version of the Bible, these verses are phrased in such a way as to imply that the hand or the foot can “offend” a person. In the New King James version it is simplified down to saying the hand and the foot can make one sin. In both versions both 43 and 45 say that we are to cut off those body parts and then it states that it is better to “enter into life” lame. This notion first of all and for most of cutting off does not mean to physically cut off or at least I don’t believe that’s the heart of the spirit behind it. I believe that the Holy Spirit was indicating that when our hand or foot causes us to sin then we are to stop it from having authority in our lives. The phrase “cut it off“ can be understood in the same way we would “cut off“ a person who is drinking too much. This is what it means to cut off the hand or the foot. Not literally to cut them off. So what does it mean then to enter into life lame? This notion of entering into life is the word Zoe in the original Greek. This word means the fullness of life; the entirety that you can receive from life, health, prosperity, comfort, peace, joy, safety,- everything that we associate with God and fullness of life. So when we think about cutting off an appendage or rather taking the authority away from an appendage so that we might enter this Zoe this fullness of life lame, what we really are saying is that we can experience the fullness of life if we don’t allow one of our fleshly sinful habits to continue to drag us out of the fullness of life. Think about it if you were actually to cut off a hand or a foot and you were to enter into a life celebration such as a banquet. I submit to you that you would have a worse time in the banquet without a foot or hand. Right? It would be much more fun to enter into this life celebration with all of your parts, if you understand what I mean. Therefore I would like to present to you the notion that when we think about cutting off our hand or our foot so that we may enter into life lame we need to think about it in terms of taking the authority away from whatever part of our body had the sinful bent to it. And when we take away this authority then we experience the fullness entirely of the life of God and our body part that we have taken the authority away from is lame. In other words it cannot function when we are in the fullness of life we have restricted its authority to function therefore we are entering in lame. Our flesh, our problematic mindsets will be out of the way.

Next let’s look at verse 47 because verse 47, although also speaking of a body part, is entirely different in its construction. Verse 47 indicates that if our eye should cause us to sin; or as the old King James would say, offend us, then we are to pluck it out. The word says that it is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye then to have two eyes. Notice in the first two verses that we referenced we were entering into “life.” Remember? Zoe life. But now we’re entering into the kingdom of God. There is a distinction and a difference here. The kingdom of God of course is not with observation according to our Lord Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is heaven on earth. Basically we are manifesting the way of life that exists in heaven here on earth. If we have this eye that causes us to sin we need to pluck it out. This notion of plucking out the eye lends itself to the understanding of taking anything away from the sight of that eye. It does not refer to actually physically removing our eye. What it refers to is a way of thinking, and how do we learn to think? We learn to think by things that we see. Things that we see inform our thinking, they inform our opinions. Take for example the current state of affairs. I personally do not watch the news, but I know that several people do watch the news and therefore they panic. However I personally don’t know about anything that’s going on in the world most of the time unless one of my family members tells me about it. So I am not in a state of panic because I don’t see everything that’s going on in the world today. In other words I have plucked out my eye. I have removed from my eyes line of sight anything that goes against the word of God for the most part. Therefore it is easier for me as a person in this 21st-century to manifest the kingdom of God, which again is the kingdom of heaven here on this earth than it is for other people. The reason for this is because I have a single eye. Not meaning that I have only one eye in my head. It means that I have only one thing that I’m looking at all the time. There is a famous quote that says if you want to destroy a man’s vision give him two. Meaning that if you have two things to focus on you can do neither well. And that is what our Lord Jesus Christ is saying here. He is saying that it is better to enter into the kingdom of God, to enter into manifesting the kingdom of heaven here on earth with only one eye. This phrase one eye is in the Greek “ mono ophthalmic” and it means one eyed but it’s indicative of having one mindset. In other words what you see with your mind’s eye is single. That’s why I am able to manifest the kingdom of God more readily and tap into heavenly solutions more often than other people. Because I tend to keep before my eyes-only things that agree with the word of God. My deep desire for you then beloved is that if you find yourself not able to manifest walking in the fullness of the Zoe life that Jesus Christ died to give you then please cut off those members of your body from having any authority in your actions. If your hands keep going to the refrigerator grabbing food that you don’t need; or your hand keeps grabbing the handle on a slot machine; or your hand keeps grabbing for cigarettes; or for alcohol then you cut off your hands authority to reach for any of those things. And then you will walk in the fullness of the Zoe life of God. I further deeply desire that if you are not able to manifest the kingdom of God more fully, then my heart for you is that you begin to cut off your mind’s eye from seeing anything that does not agree with the word of God.