“And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire” (Mark 9:47 NKJV).

Jesus often used hyperbole to make a point. After taking a child onto his lap, he warned against anyone who would cause such a little one who believed in Him to stumble. He told them it would be better that such a one have a millstone hung around their neck and be cast into the sea. Then, he warned against allowing anyone or anything to cause us to sin as well. He illustrated this with three parts of the human body, the hands, the feet and the eyes, in his warning to drive home the extreme seriousness of sin’s penalty. He taught that it was better to enter heaven missing a hand, a foot or an eye, than to go to hell with them. Perhaps the apostle John had these three warnings in view when he wrote, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). Do not let anyone or anything, no matter how dear it may be to you, cause you to choose sin over believing in Christ.