Matthew 5:29 “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
This past Christmas our children gifted Chip and me with theater tickets to see The Great Divorce, a play based on the book by C.S. Lewis. The title comes as a counter to a poem written by William Blake called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Lewis believed in no uncertain terms there could never be a union between good and evil. And he wrote The Great Divorce to depict the great chasm between heaven and hell.
In the story, passengers on an allegorical train have the opportunity to leave the greyness of hell/purgatory and enter the outskirts of heaven. But they all have particular attachments keeping them from paradise. An artist clings to his creativity; a mother obsesses over her son. One woman thinks her husband can’t survive without her control. They may want heaven, but they want it on their terms. And if they can’t have their own pet sins thrown in, forget it.
I think there are a lot of attempts these days to marry heaven and hell. Many fear if we don’t embrace the culture, the culture won’t embrace us. So we invite the world to be our partner in determining right from wrong. The world assures us there’s no harm in sneaking a little immorality, a little greed, a little pride into heaven. But we can’t. Jesus makes it clear. If we hope to enter heaven, we must deal drastically with sin. Cut it off!
Maybe it’s a good time to examine whether we’ve been justifying behaviors that just can’t fit through the narrow gate. Have we been sipping on a deadly cocktail of good with a shot of compromise? God gives us the profound honor of choosing our own destiny. But it’s on his terms, not ours.
Lewis wrote, “If we insist on keeping hell (or even earth) we shall not see heaven: If we accept heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of hell.”
Friend, don’t be afraid to cut off anything that causes you to stumble. Because heaven will be more than worth it.