Taken seriously
15 June 2018
Jesus takes your whole life seriously. Your talents, your desires, the way you think, the way you act, the way you feel. Jesus places more value on every part of your life that anyone else ever will.
This is because he created you to be the instrument of his grace to the rest of the world. You are to be a way in which he blesses the whole world. As a human being, created in the image of God, who you are and what you do is of immense consequence and value to the kingdom of God.
It’s clear, then, that Jesus takes every part of you seriously. It for this reason that he is also more serious than you are about your sin.
Just look at the example that Jesus gives in today’s Gospel reading.
“If your right eye should be your downfall, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body thrown into hell.”
We often think so little of our own sin. We don’t think our little sins and indulgences matter in the grand scheme of things.
But Jesus detests sin because it tears humanity away from its Creator, and as a result, severs us from the purpose that God has ingrained within us. All sin is violence against the way in which God created us. Even though through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God forgives the faithful of all of their sin, all sin is a cause of greater suffering and separation from God. And there is nothing more serious than the separation of God from his sons and daughters.
For this reason, we need to tear ourselves away from anything that would tear us from God. Because of how seriously Jesus takes us and how much he values us, we need to take our sin more seriously.