mrcrowder.com
Denying instant gratification that whores our souls and rapes the image of God inside of us and others. 
Sorry for the graphic language, but it sort of fits with the topic.
In Matthew 5, Jesus is driving home the intent of the Law—to re-create people & a community that is the reflection of the love, grace, justice, and even holiness of God in the midst of Creation.
Why? To be light and flavor. Or flava. Whichever.
To be a light that guides people back, or reconciles them, to the image they were created in.
To be salt—actually preservative, not just flavoring. Preserving what little image of God was actually left in broken men & women while God himself was working on their hearts.
He then uses some particular places in the Old Testament Law, the Torah, to make examples of how the Law was meant to do this. First, in his ever-so-Jesus way, he points out that we would actually rather follow rules than be transformed into this peculiar kind of person and community. How Jesus of him. How broken of us.
He talks about anger, which I briefly blogged about last week. And the simple truth is this—it’s easy not to murder someone. It’s infinitely harder to affirm their God-given image by not hating them. Restraining from murder is not transformative. Letting the Spirit of God help you become a person that extends unlimited grace rather than anger towards others is the way of Jesus.
And then he talks about Adultery and Lust.
Boom.
We don’t like talking about that.
Because in our day and age, we still think murder is pretty terrible. Sex? We’re pretty excited about it. And not just that, because all peoples in all times have been pretty stoked about sex—it’s just in Jesus’ culture, it was still very taboo to have sex outside of marriage (*unless you were royalty, apparently, but that’s another topic), or what’s being translated as “adultery.”
And so, like with anger, he’s saying that you may very well not be sleeping around on your wife… but that doesn’t mean you’re being transformed into the image of God.
Or, he could have said, “you may be keeping it in your pants but you’re destroying your soul.” He didn’t say that, though, of course… because he didn’t speak English.
God’s grace, love, peace, justice, Holiness, righteousness—these are the things of Heaven. These are the things of the Kingdom of God breaking through in the midst of humanity.
And abstaining from adultery does not cause these things to break forth.
What does, though?
Going to great lengths to seek God, the God-given image in ourselves and the God-given image in others is a good start.
Jesus calls them out—though they may be outwardly obedient, inwardly they are slaves to their own desires. They are slaves to their image, not the image of God. They are all about satisfying self.
We are all about satisfying self.
He goes so far as to say that if your eye or your hand is causing sin and lust, to chop them off. Why? Because it’s better to live in the image of God without an eye or a hand than to have your whole body but let your soul die to a Hell of your own making.
You’ll find yourself chained to your desires, and it will drag you all the way down to the destruction of your soul. You’ll become less and less human and more and more a facade—a body that’s devoted to personal gratification. Tell me you don’t see that all around you and you’ll be a liar.
Jesus sees right through the crap in this situation. Even if you’ve never had sex outside of marriage, you could be a slave to your lusts.
And the God that’s truly free, advocates true freedom, and wants to re-create you in his image that’s abundantly free—that God is after the restoration of your soul.
I hope you’re starting to see the dichotomy present where Jesus teaches the Kingdom of God. Are we going to worship ourselves or worship God? Are we going to seek His Kingdom and his values or our gratification and glory?
The Kingdom of God is God in action. God at work to restore broken humans into his image. Don’t ignore the Kingdom by submitting your actions but corroding your heart.
