Pride in our uprightness is dangerous; it comes before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).  The disciples had just revealed their hearts by asking Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1).  By taking a little child as an example of dependency and trust, Jesus confronted them with the need to humble themselves (Matthew 18:4; 1 Peter 5:6).  Without humility they could never lead the church to be true disciples of Jesus Christ; people would stumble, and that would greatly offend the King (Matthew 18:6).  Humility is essential for holiness.
 
It is wickedly unholy to make others stumble (Matthew 18:6-7), but to cause ourselves to stumble is arrogantly foolish.  Allowing ourselves to be tripped up, and diverted away from following Christ, has eternal consequences.  Jesus said that radical action was needed to keep each disciple on track.  He spoke about the hand, foot and eye as though they control the direction and destiny of the person.  Of course, our body parts do not have independent intelligence, but they certainly express the desires of people’s hearts (Matthew 15:18-20).
 
Jesus wanted His people to have holy hearts, determined to discipline destructive passions (Ephesians 4:22-28; 1 Peter 1:16).  Jesus could not have spoken more strongly: if a part of the body demonstrates a disciple's course away from heaven and towards hell, the person is better off without it.  However, the Lord never meant that people should mutilate themselves to escape temptation, because that would not deal with the fundamental problem - which is the wrong desires of the heart.  It is those wrong desires which want the hand to act wrongly, the foot to go to the wrong place and the eye to feast on the wrong things.  Like King David when he sinned, we need to repent and ask the Lord to give us a heart which longs to be holy (Psalm 51:1-12).
 
Excuses such as "Nobody can be perfect", "I could not help myself" and "I did my best" may be true statements about the past but they cannot justify sinful rebellion.  We have the responsibility to identify those areas in which we allow ourselves to sin … ask the Lord to help us to change our heart's desires and take effective measures to prevent our flesh from controlling our souls.  Where we have fallen to temptation, repentance leads a humble heart to please God.  With His help, we choose to change our physical patterns of life to put those temptations beyond reach.  If we refuse to do that, what sort of disciples are we?  We need to wake up to where we are heading.  Take action today … and keep on taking it until your renewed heart chooses to make new and holy habits which Jesus will honour.