If social media accelerates or excites either anger or lust in you, change how your social media app works. If that doesn’t stop it, delete the app.
“if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”
Jesus is not making a polite suggestion.
He summons you as Lord to the narrow path.
Contextually, Jesus is here condemning adultery. The Lord explains that if someone even “looks at a woman with lustful intent,” then such a person “has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28).
That should jar us in our age of sexuality.
Sex sells, because men and women lust.
But lust is not a game. It is not a mere exchange. Your life hangs in the balance.
Jesus does not take such sin lightly. He does not ask us to enter into a five-step program to learn and eventually overcome lust. He brutally shows us how serious he takes lust: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away” (Matt 5:29).
Why? Because “it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matt 5:29).
Jesus then claims, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matt 5:30). Here, he moves from the specific—the eye the heart uses to lust—to the general. Even one’s hand should be cut off, if it causes us to sin.
In a digital age, the hand often leads us into a sin. Just a little clicking with a finger, just a little scrolling with a digit, and then comes destruction.
Jesus takes lust seriously. And he does not only condemn lust with such brutal terms. He also condemns anger—rage! Anger is internalized murder (Matt 5:21–22). And Jesus says, “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matt 5:22).
Anger and lust pervert passion (anger) and the will (lust). Such sin destroys us—body and soul. Jesus names and condemns sin to save us from ourselves, from our own deviance.
God cares for everyone. And he knows that lust and anger destroy. And they are merciless tyrants.
To overcome lust, we must attach ourselves fully to the kingdom of God (Matt 6:23). To overthrow anger, we must give ourselves fully over to the love of God which makes us perfect (Matt 5:43–48).
Jesus will take these burdens from us and eviscerate them. In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus calls us to himself with our weakness and weariness. Then he takes away what weakens and wearies us.
He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28–30).
Jesus does not command what he does not supply. He gives us the grace we need to destroy lust and to crush anger. But he is not light with sin. He does not make mere suggestions. He commands us. Jesus summons us the narrow path as Lord.
And—importantly—he also accepts us in our weariness and weakness, as he takes our burden of sin and grief and sorrow unto himself. He went to the cross to deliver us from lust and anger. He rose from the dead to conquer sin and death. And now he beckons us to come to him.
Do not let social media wreck your soul. If it causes you to lust or incites anger, cut it off. Your life depends on it.
