LEARNING DAILY

 

Matthew 6:22-23, “The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness now, how great is that darkness!”  Jesus

 

Jesus is giving us both a warning and teaching doctrine in Matthew 6: 19-27.  He is telling about sin and its effect upon us.  Each of us is attacked by sin each day; we are defeated by it more often than any of us want to admit. 

 

In verses 19-21, we are being told that our heart is attacked first and verse 22-23 speaks of our mind and will following the heart.  It is interesting how strongly earthly treasures and possessions tend to control our personality – the heart, the mind, and the will.  Man was meant to understand and be controlled by that understanding.  But due to the Fall and sin, man is no longer controlled by his mind and understanding; he is controlled by his desires, his affections, and his lusts.  Man finds himself in a great predicament!

 

Read John 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”  This is not to say men should not have a heart or should not have feelings.  As a Christian, you are not to be controlled by them.  Man likes to think of himself as a gigantic intellect!  Sin and its effects upset the order and balance God created.  “Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.” 

 

Sin also blinds a person to things and their relative value.  Think of the importance we place on things that are important for a short time and never stop to consider the things that are eternal and endless.  Or consider we attempt to mix light with darkness.  Think about the deeds done in darkness.  There is nothing more wonderful than the light.  Yet, we are slow to appreciate the value of light over darkness.  “Men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.”  I only see more and more being drawn to darkness, away from the light.

 

One cannot mix God with mammon; you cannot love two opposites at the same time.  You cannot mix light and darkness.  As Christians, we try.  Too many live as close to the line drawn between Christian and non-Christian – one foot in the Christian worldview and one foot in worldly view.  Others say, “I’ll just wait until I’m on my deathbed, then I will ask Jesus into my heart.  Right now I am going to live for myself.”  That is just blindness and stupidity!  It’s coveting wealth, earthly riches, position and status before becoming a child of God.

 

Take a moment and make a list of all the things you are living for at this moment, the things that matter to you the most.  Here is the test.  Are you ready?  Go back to the list and circle all that you will be able to take with you when you die.  If you are like me, I circled nothing.

 

The world is filled with people who laugh at Christianity, who denounce a Christian worldview.  They are living for the moment; the present is all that matters.  To do so is the only rational way to live their life because they do not believe in life after death.  They do not realize they love the darkness more than the light.  My advice to them – be careful.  All darkness will be made light someday.  I cannot think of anything more terrible than to have placed all my trust in the things done in the dark only to see how great the darkness is.  The one who has not served God will see all he lived for is gone and he is without hope.

 

Love God.  Love the things of God and serve Him alone.

 

 

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