What’s in your eyes?

‘Time in the Word’ By Clayton Adams

“The eye is a lamp of the body. So then if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23).

Across our nation and especially in the Mid-South, there is a great spiritual oppression and darkness.

Some will argue there are many reasons; racism, discrimination, crime, disease or a hundred other reasons, but these are all symptoms of the disease that is spiritual oppression and darkness in our land.

When Jesus said, “The eye is a lamp of the body” He was speaking about a person trying to please two different masters; one being God and the other being money. Jesus said we cannot serve God and money – we must choose who we will serve and who, or what we serve is what we love.

What do you love? Perhaps a very short test to see where your attention and eyes are focused on, answer these brief questions: What do you spend your money on? What do you spend your time doing? What do you do with your talents and abilities?

The answer to these three questions goes a long way to determining who or what you love.

Taking the principle that Jesus spoke of, “The eye is lamp of the body” may I ask, what is in your sight? I don’t mean physical things (but it could be), I am asking as to what is in your mind’s eye?

What do you think of?

What issue, topic, person, activity does your mind go to? What enters our visual sight is not easy to control.

We can be driving down the highway and a sign, poor in taste or simply explicit is sometimes all it takes to interrupt and corrupt our thinking. Though inappropriate sights may enter our minds, that does not mean we have to continue to think about these things. The apostle Paul wrote; “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raise up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Too, we dwell on (allow into our minds) things which we can control. For instance, things, people or events from our past.

The death of a parent is an event some people seem to never recover from.

When someone does us wrong, crippling accidents, financial disasters, sometimes even the unfairness of life, all can debilitate people because they dwell on these things. Each of these things do capture our attention for a while, but we are to overcome these events, we are not to dwell on them. We should not let these things hold us back from greater successes in life God has for us.

What Jesus said is true, “The eye is a lamp of the body. So then if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

What are you focused on?

What holds your attention?

What hinders you? May I suggest a daily routine of doing what Paul did in his life, “…forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Change what comes in your view, don’t look at the past, look forward – life is in your future not in your past. Turnover to Jesus your past, present and future and look forward with renewed vision.

What’s in your eyes?

Clayton Adams has a message of faith he would like to share with the community. He would also like to hear from you. E-mail him at claytonpadamslll@ gmail.com.