It is estimated that 95 percent of the VCRs in the world have 12:00 blinking because the instructions are too difficult to follow, unlike “Wet-Naps,” whose instructions for use are, “Open and use.”

That’s the way people want to travel on the so-called Information Superhighway: keep it simple.

All too often our “moral VCRs” are blinking because morality is viewed as one big gray area. On the contrary, the Ten Commandments and other Biblical precepts and regulations are straightforward and understandable. One’s life can be programmed by them very simply, yet we complicate moral standards and principles with excuses, rationalizations, cultural and psychological “explanations” that muddy the issues of right and wrong. We live in a throwaway culture.

Things are designed to be disposable, very little is fixed or repaired. But for all those things we are happy to toss away and replace, there is one thing we all have trouble getting rid of — our own old habits.

Jesus preaches some very harsh-sounding warnings about the consequences we face should we fail to practice holiness within every aspect of our lives. Jesus’ directives are violently vivid metaphors that tell you that you must simply stop doing the things that harm others or yourself before these old behaviors destroy you.

For instance, the offense of anger: Jesus broadens the most dramatic display of anger — murder — into a category that can easily apply to anyone at any given time. Getting angry, hurling insults, cussing out someone, violence, vulgarity, cynicism, incivility.

It seems incredible that Jesus should equate such seemingly trivial behaviors with a crime as vile as murder. But in both cases, Jesus insists that you are liable to judgment. He expects honoring the law to be part of all you do every day, in whatever dealings or relationships you may be involved.

We all know there is a flippant use of God’s name in casual speech and Jesus does refer to this, but there is more. The central issue here is fidelity to one’s word (being true to self) and to one’s commitment to God. It is possible to stop bad, destructive behavior, but it is not easy. The cornerstone of Alcoholics Anonymous has long been that alcoholics must practice complete abstinence if they are to control their addiction. Yet it takes a tremendous amount of energy to renew that dedication to stop that destructive behavior each and every day.

That is why AA and other 12 step programs rely heavily on creating supportive communities of their peers: others who have “stopped it” (cut it off) and will stand by each other on those inevitable bad days. You can have a new marriage ... a new body ... a new attitude ... a new career ... a new community ... a new world, but only by stopping the old destructive, hurtful behaviors you have recycled for so many years. The changes you want to come about in your life will not happen just by wishing them to be so. You must cut yourself off from your old attitudes and habits and throw them away.

For good. For yourself. For God.