by Tim Hall

By now most of us have heard the story. A hiker out west was trapped by a boulder. His arm was caught, and he could in no way free himself. After days of waiting for the rescue team that never came, the man knew the situation was dire. With his pocketknife he amputated his own arm, thus freeing himself so he could walk to safety.

"I could never do such a thing!" many of us have thought upon hearing the story. Could we not? Very few of us have been in such life-threatening situations as this hiker. If it came down to the same choice he faced, we might just find it within ourselves to do such a drastic thing. It's impossible to say what we would do until we come face to face with life or death dilemmas.

I said in that last paragraph that very few of us face such decisions. Actually that's not true. According to Jesus, we are all faced with tough choices. The question becomes, How badly do we want to live?

"If your right eye causes you to sin," said Jesus in Matthew 5:29,30, "pluck it out and cast if from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell" (New King James Version). He went on to repeat the point. If our right hand causes us to sin, He advised, "cut it off".

The hiker surely must have considered the ramifications of cutting off his arm. Never again would he have the use of that limb. Life would be forever changed. He would need to learn new ways of doing the routine tasks of life, and some activities would have to be abandoned altogether.

But the choice was clear: Did he want to live or not? Keeping the arm would mean death in the wilderness. To live would require leaving the arm behind.

Do we want to live or not? Sometimes we have to make hard choices. Something that has been a part of us all our lives is keeping us from total devotion to God's will. Can we find it within ourselves to "cut it off"? Or will we die in the wilderness of sin with our imperfect self intact?

This is not to say that Jesus' words are to be interpreted literally. Actual removal of a physical limb or organ may not have been what the Lord had in mind. But severe pruning of our desires is absolutely the point!

Do we want to live? Then sooner or later we're going to have to decide - Am I willing to cut "it" off (whatever "it" may be)? "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:39)