Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is! [Matthew 6.22-23]
This passage is right in the middle of Jesus' discussion about money.
Why?
It would seem that Jesus' teaching about money and possessions here would be perfectly complete without verses 22-23. The discussion would have made sense and the point would have been well made. But Jesus included this little group of sentences - it must have been for some reason.
Perhaps, without the reality of verses 22-23, most of us would read right over Jesus' sermon point about money. But because Jesus pointed out that the eye has something to do with it, we are faced with our own eyes and what they see.
Our eyes see what we want them to see.
If all we look at, is 'things', then our estimation of ourselves relative to this teaching about money will be skewed. If, however, all we look at is 'God things', then our view of money and wealth changes completely.
The danger lies in the fact that if we are looking at just 'things' and not 'God things', then we will mistakenly think we are seeing 'light' when, in fact, we are seeing, and are therefore in, utter darkness - a darkness we have created for ourselves - a darkness so dark as it is undetectable!
"What are you looking at?" is a question we all need to ask ourselves regularly.
Father, help me to train myself to look at Your things. I've been looking at my things recently and it has caused me justify a lot of actions that I would otherwise deem unnecessary if I were truly looking at Your things.
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