Lessons from Matthew 5: Adultery
In Matthew 5:27-30, Jesus continued His illustrations of the Christian’s relationship to the Law. The next illustration is another personal matter of the heart.
Adultery
Adultery is the theft of one’s most intimate possession. It’s the sin of coveting, desiring, wanting, and lusting for someone who is not yours and it begins in the thoughts and imagination. This goes beyond a casual look.
It’s affixing our eyes and minds upon someone who we should not, and in a way that is not holy in God’s sight.
It’s the desire to have sex outside of marriage. Or while being married, it’s a desire to be sexually active with someone other than our spouse.
It’s focusing our eyes upon pornography whether through Fifty Shades or Grey or any other such books or magazines, TV programs, movies, internet. You name it, we are surrounded by it. It even comes in the way we dress, or I should say don’t dress!
And the remedy for such a temptation or sin is radical. Jesus says to cut it off, get rid of it.
Once we belong to Christ, our body becomes the temple, the dwelling place, of His Holy Spirit and therefore we are to treat it as such. We have been set apart and we as Christians must not act like others act.
We must denounce our sinful thoughts before they become actions. And if you have already fallen into this sin, cut it off, get rid of it, and confess your sin.
Remember, He is loving and kind and He will forgive those who confess their wrongs before Him.
Just like the woman at the well, He says your sins are forgiven. Now go and sin no more!