Mark 9:42-44 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
In Mark 9:42-50 The Lord Jesus Christ throws down the gauntlet on “Christian Liberty” and the complacent attitude towards battling with indwelling sin in our lives. Once again, Jesus disturbs any self-constructed comfort zones that we create for ourselves in our daily battles with the flesh and our call to be witnesses to a lost and dying world. It is dangerous to ignore the warnings of The Master under the guise of them being “inconsistent with the message of grace.” The saving grace of God is not a license to live carelessly or in a known lifestyle of sin, but a call to walk circumspectly and holy.
Being saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ means that you and I are called to be the salt of the earth. Being salt means that we are called to be people of influence in a world system that is corrupt. Not holier-than-thou, and self-righteous, but people who present themselves as stepping stones, not stumbling stones to those who have yet to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are to be people who – for the sake of Jesus, and for the sake of reaching the lost with the gospel, and seeking to help those who know Jesus grow in grace – choose daily to deny our “rights” and mortify our sinful flesh that misrepresents The Lord of glory.
The way of salvation is easy, for it is Jesus Who has paid the price for our sin that once separated us from God. But the pathway of personal sanctification and being a witness in a fallen world is a battle that must be waged every day until The Lord calls us home. Jesus has commissioned you, reader, to be His witness, and He has empowered you to do so (Acts 1:8). Selah
