We Need To Remove The Negative/Bad Things From Our Lives

So this week I was reading in Matthew 18 and I came across verses 8-9. I thought that these verses were very interesting considering what it seem that Christ is telling us to do here. He mentions that we need to cut off our hands and feet that offend us and that it's better for us to go in heaven without them than to go to hell with them. Now I’m sure that Christ didn’t mean for us to actually cut our hands and feet off. But I believe that He meant it symbolically. For the symbolism of the feet, I feel like He meant that we need to cut those things out of our lives that we shouldn’t be going to. Such as a party where we know that there’ll be a lot of negative influences. Or places that we don't want to go or shouldn't go but we go because we want to look or seem "cool".  But to avoid going to any of those places that we know that we need to avoid. Same idea with the hand, to avoid doing things that betrays who we are such as masturbation or anything else that would take us from the Savior and pushes Him from our lives. For our eyes, to stop looking at or watching things that we shouldn’t be such as inappropriate shows or anything else that pushes the Spirit away. Like porn or anything else that encourages evil thoughts. As we cut these types of things out of our lives, we’ll be able to return to live with Christ and our Father again.

We Need to Heal Ourselves

So this week I learned something really interesting in my New Testament class. I decided to study the lists that Christ gives us in the scriptures. There was one particular one that I read that stuck out to me. It was Matthew 11:5 It took me a little while to figure out the message that it had that came with the list. “5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” At first it didn’t seem like this list had importance in the order or that it had any special or particular meaning. So I kept ready and I came across Matthew 13:15 “15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” That list wasn’t talking about just the physical sense but the spiritual sense as well. If the little miracles are not done, if we do not spiritually heal our eyes and ears, then the bigger miracles cannot be made. Without healing ourselves, it makes it impossible for the Lord to heal us and have the gospel fully taught to us by the Spirit. Many people want God to immediately change something in their lives or heal them without them doing any of the work. However, the Lord cannot help us if we don't do our pat and prepare ourselves to receive His help.