July 5 – Good and bad eyes

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  NLT)        

Life in the 21st Century is no joke. Though people have suffered from the very beginning of life on earth, some much more than us, today we are bombarded more than anyone else in the history of the world with images, sounds, and messages that are designed to turn our eyes bad and fill us with darkness. So many things are clamoring for our attention, attempting to turn us away from God and faith.  The media’s bias towards negative news stories shows a blatant disregard for society’s state of mind, all because tragedy and scandal draw bigger audiences and more advertising money.  Billboards about casinos, beer, cruises, new cars, and churches that offer quick, nonthreatening church services to people who are not interested in changing, all appeal to a worldly state of mind.  

When Goliath insulted the army of Israel and it’s king Saul for forty days straight, twice a day, the army that had God Almighty as its leader and protector turned its back and ran. For almost a month and a half they were humiliated and frightened by one man — he was big, but he was still one man!  It took a young man around the age of 14 or 15 who was unpolluted by those forty days of fear, to hear the giants threats and decide that he would correct this wrong for God and His people.  David had good eyes, eyes that could see what was possible through the power of God. David’s older brother and King Saul had bad eyes, eyes that focused on Goliath’s size, weaponry, and experience. Because their eyes were bad they ran from one man who prayed to a piece of stone even though they prayed to the one, true God.

Right now each one of us has to make the decision to have good or bad eyes — live by faith in God’s promises, or live the dark, mundane, unextraordinary lives of the people around us. We all see the same things, but what makes our eyes good or bad is how we interpret the things we see, and what conclusions we make. Do we believe that God can save us from any problem no matter how big, or do we doubt Him and His promises?  I pray that you make the right choice.