Cutting Off Infected Limbs
So Melissa had to lose her arm because of this terribly infected raccoon bite. And of course, this was hard for her to come to terms with. But Doctor Seth wrote this on page 75: "Losing a hand is a price worth paying to save a life. That doesn't mean it's not a cruelly high price.”
And then he says “Melissa was more realistic about these things than I was. As I found out, she was already over the loss of her arm. She was thinking, I'm not ready to leave my husband. I want to see my dogs. I want to keep helping stray dogs find homes (that's what she did for a living), I have things I still want to do, even if I have to do them one-handed.”
Sacrifice for Life
Now, in a sense, this reminds me of a couple of things Jesus said. Do you remember Matthew 5:30? "If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to hell."
The words of Jesus Himself. He was saying we need to cut off the things in our lives that are infected. We need to get rid of them so that we can save our souls, just like she had to lose an arm to save her life. Friends, you and I need to lose the things that take us away from God—that are infected by sin—so that we can be saved.
Remove What Hinders
Is there anything that you need to trim out of your life, you need to cut it off so that you stop stumbling and start living the Jesus way?
He saves us without us having to do a thing. But as people who are saved, we are called to a high standard of love and of holiness and of goodness. Cutting off the things that cause us to stumble is a small price to pay for our souls to be saved.
Eternal Perspective
Friends, after all, as Jesus said in Matthew 16:26: "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"
