RADICAL AMPUTATION: Cutting the Cord
The "Four Radical A's" in biblical counseling—Radical Amputation, Radical Accountability, Radical Appropriation, and Radical Adoration—provide a framework for actively fighting sin and pursuing holiness. These principles focus on aggressively removing sinful influences, submitting to community, applying biblical truth, and worshiping God to transform hearts.
Radical Amputation: Cutting the Cord
The manner of being free from habitual sin is to radically amputate every avenue through which it enters, and to be radical in cutting it off at the source: Matthew 5:29-30
Jesus is not teaching here the dismembering of our bodies, rather He is teaching the need to be radical in cutting out those avenues through which sin enters. In other words, He is saying to make it so that it is practically impossible to get to your sin or to gratify your flesh in the same way you’ve been doing. We who truly want victory will not allow any provision for our flesh, to gratify the lusts thereof (Romans 13:14), for we recognize that if it is available we might turn to it in a weak moment.
God the Father dealt with sin in this radical manner. Jesus was “cut of!” from the land of the living after God placed our sins on Him (Isaiah 53:8).
The story of Achan in Joshua 7 teaches that hidden defilement weakens the ability to fight. Only as the Israelites “radically amputated” Achan and his entire family did they have victory over their enemies.
Purity precedes power.
This does not mean that radical amputation is the entire answer to overcoming sin. It is an important step in the change process, but it is not the whole process itself. This step can’t be overlooked, but it must be accompanied with ongoing seeking of the Lord and growth in grace if we really want to be free.
If you want to be free consider every avenue through which you have fallen, and set out to make it so that you have zero access to it in the future. The devil lies and says that real victory would be to have the way to gratify ourselves and then to refuse it. There does come a time when this victory can indeed happen, but initially the way to freedom is through a radical removal of the source of temptation. “Pluck out the eye, cut off the hand.”
As we are radical in amputation we find freedom (Matthew I 8:8-9).
PK
Radical Amputation: Cutting the Cord
The manner of being free from habitual sin is to radically amputate every avenue through which it enters, and to be radical in cutting it off at the source: Matthew 5:29-30
Jesus is not teaching here the dismembering of our bodies, rather He is teaching the need to be radical in cutting out those avenues through which sin enters. In other words, He is saying to make it so that it is practically impossible to get to your sin or to gratify your flesh in the same way you’ve been doing. We who truly want victory will not allow any provision for our flesh, to gratify the lusts thereof (Romans 13:14), for we recognize that if it is available we might turn to it in a weak moment.
God the Father dealt with sin in this radical manner. Jesus was “cut of!” from the land of the living after God placed our sins on Him (Isaiah 53:8).
The story of Achan in Joshua 7 teaches that hidden defilement weakens the ability to fight. Only as the Israelites “radically amputated” Achan and his entire family did they have victory over their enemies.
Purity precedes power.
This does not mean that radical amputation is the entire answer to overcoming sin. It is an important step in the change process, but it is not the whole process itself. This step can’t be overlooked, but it must be accompanied with ongoing seeking of the Lord and growth in grace if we really want to be free.
If you want to be free consider every avenue through which you have fallen, and set out to make it so that you have zero access to it in the future. The devil lies and says that real victory would be to have the way to gratify ourselves and then to refuse it. There does come a time when this victory can indeed happen, but initially the way to freedom is through a radical removal of the source of temptation. “Pluck out the eye, cut off the hand.”
As we are radical in amputation we find freedom (Matthew I 8:8-9).
PK
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