When I was in elementary school, we learned about something called a "number line."  The central point was zero, and you could either count up or down from there.  To the positive was 1,2,3, etc. and to the negative was -1,-2,-3, and so on.  We even learned how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers. 

 When each of us as believers began our Christian life, we are placed at zero, and we are closer to God than we have ever been.  The important thing is that we are not privileged to stay there long.  We  always drift in the negative direction, or we push toward the positive, the positive being toward God, the negative toward the world.  Those who try to live with one foot in the world and the other in the kingdom of God will virtually always slide to the negative.  The negative spiritual pull of the world is like a powerful undertow, and we need to be willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent our own sin against God and sliding back.  Jesus put forth some really drastic measures in His first sermon about how far we should be willing to go in this regard....

 "And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you;  for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell."            Matthew 5:30-31

 Wow!  That sounds pretty extreme, doesn't it?  Jesus spoke these words in His Sermon on the Mount.  He had been baptized in the Jordan river by John the Baptist, He had spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, he had chosen at least some of His disciples, and He had healed large numbers of people of every conceivable kind of disease and illness, both mental, demonic, and physical.  When He had everybody's attention, He began to preach, and early in His sermon, He spoke the words we just read.  His point was that we should be willing to lay aside whatever prevents us from living Godly lives and follow His example. 

 Now, let's get serious.  None of us would ever to cut off a hand or tear out an eye, but the sad part is, there are some sins we choose to keep in our lives that are far less necessary than a hand or an eye, and these elements continually nudge us away from God's plan for our lives, effectively preventing us from serving Christ. We defer to these parts of our lives as if they were parts of our bodies.  Why is it that so many hear the gospel and yet never make a commitment to Christ?  If we carefully watch those who have rejected the gospel message, we find in most cases that they're enjoying their present life of sin too much, and they simply don't want to let go of their pleasure and find peace with God.  To the prosperous, well-fed sinner, leaving their sinful pleasures behind would be like cutting off a hand or tearing out an eye.  There was a time when we were all prone to worship our own gods of comfort and pleasure, flesh, and self service, and the pull of spiritual gravity continually drags us back in that direction.  We tend to want all our money and all our time to be ours and ours alone, and those of us who never truly received Christ are sliding full tilt into hell with the mistaken idea that somehow everything will work out OK on the other side of the grave. God's Word is clear about that.

       The crux of the statement Jesus made is:  Be willing to give up whatever is necessary order to receive the salvation He offers. The first principle Jesus laid forth when He opened His mouth to preach was the principle of repentance. The closer we get to God, the more sensitive we'll become to the sin that pervades our lives.  Even after healing and forgiving, based on His intimate knowledge of every person He encountered, Jesus' overarching message was
       "Go and sin no more."  In one case, He even made this cryptic statement:

 
  "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, that nothing worse may befall you."                        John 5:14b

 "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death.  There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make a request for this.  All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.  We know that no one who is born of God sins, but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him."         1 John 5:16-18

This passage refers to a lifestyle of willful sin ("sin leading unto death") as opposed to merely stumbling or falling due to human weakness ("sin not leading unto death").     

  One Saturday when I was a youngster and I had been playing in the yard, I got tired of being dirty and decided to take a bath and put on some clean clothes.  I felt a lot better after my bath. But as I returned to the outside world, I was fiddled around for a while in my clean clothes and found myself drifting back to play in the dirt and mud some more.  My dad had been observing, and he didn't ordinarily mind my playing in the dirt, but now he approached and asked me why I had gone into the house to clean up only to return to the dirt pile.  And while I couldn't think of a sensible answer, I could clearly see his point, even then. 

 As genuine, born-again Christians, we move around in today's world like a woman in a wedding dress moving around in a coal mine, and while we may think we're staying clean, we're taking on the dust and smut of the world. The longer we stay away from God, the dirtier we'll get.  First John 1:9 becomes a thing of the past for us, and our lives can slowly become a study in cool, unrepentant, unconfessed sins, and we can very easily slide down the number line a notch at a time.  Paul wrote that we are to continually examine ourselves lest we become reprobates (Second Corinthians 13:5). How are we to examine ourselves?  By using the Word of God for a mirror (James 1:23), and when the Word reveals the sinful smut in our lives, we are to use the cleansing power of the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26), confess our sins (First John 1:9), and strive never to re-commit those sins again.  We are to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us and run   with endurance the race that God has set before us.
 Okay, let's move on.  Peter, in his second epistle, laid a plan for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and here it is:

 "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence."       2 Peter 1:3b

We have no excuse at all to live in sin.

 "For by these He has granted us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."          
     2 Peter 1:4

Are we partakers of the divine nature or are we allowing our old natures to take control?  The next verses outline the ladder each of us is to climb in our Christian growth, and each one builds upon the previous.

 "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self control, and in your self control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, the render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For he who lacks these qualities is blind, or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.  Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you;  for as long as you practice these things you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into  the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus  Christ will be abundantly supplied to you."  2 Peter 1:5-11

Notice each step of the ladder:  First, there's moral excellence.  We should clean up our act, stop lying, cheating, and living like the devil.  A commitment to moral excellence leads to knowledge of God's pattern for living, which in turn leads to self control, which leads to perseverance under trial, which leads to godliness, or becoming more like the God we worship.  This godliness will lead to brotherly kindness, which the form of love the Greeks call Philia, and finally, the top step on the ladder that brings us closest to God is the love which the Greeks call Agape.  This kind of love is found only in those who have become most like God.  Notice that in Paul's treatise on love in  First Corinthians; he continued to say that no matter what else we do, if we don't have this kind of love, we're nothing.  And as we climb this ladder, we need to remember the principle Paul gave us in his letter to the Philippians.  We should be:

 "..forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."    

Philippians 3:13b-14

 Okay, so how will we know which attitudes to let go of?

   "...if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you."                                      Philippians 3:15b

And as for falling back after we've attained a new rung on the ladder:

"..however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained."                                     Philippians 3:16

It would be wise for all of us  to shoot for higher standards.                                            R.W.M