Mr. Tall

Water Rat

I went water-skiing for the first time ever in my life!

It was the first weekend in June at Lake Keowee. My boss rents a condo during the summer-time and he invited me up for the day. Thank you Martins!
The best part (and I don't have photographic proof) was the I made it up out of the water on the first try. I rode for about a minute, wiped out and then I was so tired I couldn't make it up again the next 5 tries. It was AWESOME!!

Did I mention that I like water?

Surgery

Not long ago I went to hear a very famous Evangelist and he gave a very intense sermon on Matthew 5:27-30. Because it was more or less a "fire and brimstone" sermon, he included several gruesome stories. One in particular was about a hiker that had his arm trapped by a huge boulder and there was no way for the hiker to get free. After 5 days, this hiker realized that he had to take drastic measures and he cut his own arm off. The point of his stories was that we should be so afraid of going to hell that we would sacrifice/amputate/self-mutilate to stay out of hell.

I’m not going to go off on "fire-and-brimstone" sermons but… I think that the sermon was only a mild/surface observation of this passage. I think there is a lot more truth to this passage.

It is preferable to amputate/self-mutilate than to go to hell, but the only problem is that amputation/self-mutilation does nothing in regards to sin or in restraining sin. And while we're at it, abstaining from sin does nothing in regards to sin. We need to dig deeper...
What is causing us to stumble? What needs to be cut-off? What brings us to sin? The last word in verse 28 give us the answer = OUR HEARTS.

Basically - Regeneration... We need a new heart or we will die. Time for open heart surgery!

What is Regeneration? New heart, Repentance, and Belief.
Be sure that you get this right! We don't get a new heart because we repent and believe. We repent and believe because God has given us a new heart. If our current stone sinful heart was capable of repentance and belief, would we need a new heart?

I love Ezekiel's words in 36:26-27.

God is the only one capable of giving us new hearts. When we sin, having the new heart gives us the ability to look to our high priest for all our righteousness.