27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.REFLECTIONSWritten by Tim MitryJesus knows that humans are good at focussing on outside actions, but not so much on our hearts.For myself, I know there are things I shouldn’t do, and sometimes I don’t do them – but every time I considered it, my heart was fully on board with the sin. This is risky, because God examines the heart. Initially I feel annoyed that God would try to ‘restrict’ me. However, I see that God is actually loving me deeply by telling me to do everything necessary to get away from sin. Once life’s all over, I don’t think anyone will approach God and say, “This is great and all, but I wish I had spent more time thinking those corrupting thoughts before I got here…”. What about the secrets that hide in your heart? Thoughts or feelings or passions that bubble up inside you that you dwell on? Follow Gods advice, in verse 29, to get rid of whatever will make you stumble. But make sure you do it because you know God asks this for your greatest good, to mould you into what a son or daughter of God would gloriously look like. This passage shouldn’t make us scared that we might slip up and go to hell; it should spur on us to avoid complacency. Pray that God would bring our fickle hearts to pursue holy and beautiful thoughts. Pray that we would remember the danger in clutching onto our vices and that we would put them to death. Pray that we would not fear messing up, but fear being friends with sinfulness.ABOUT THE AUTHORTim is a Speech Pathologist who attends Fairfield 6pm service, but secretly desires to desert his job and start a garden haven of fruits, vegetables, and chickens.