TEXT: Matthew 6:19, 22 – 23 (CSB) – “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal….The eye is the lamp of the body. 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. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!”
We said yesterday that Jesus gives us four tests to apply to our Treasures in the Sermon on the Mount. The first asks the question, “How long will it last?”, or the Durability Test. Then we considered the second test that asks the question, “Where are you investing your time and money?” We can call this the Heart Test. Today, we will ask the third question - “Where is your focus?”
The eye is a symbol for the mind. It has been that way in many ancient cultures. It was that way in the Hebrew culture that Jesus was speaking to in His day.
Jesus is saying that there are only two possible ways to look at things. We can focus our minds on only one thing at a time and that will establish how our minds go. If our minds focus only on things here in the material world, we’ll be full of darkness. We must turn our eyes toward the Heavenly realm, and that will give us light. That is what has been happening for many with the Covid-19 experience. And, by focusing on the circumstances, we have grown in anxiety and fear. We need to maintain a focus on God and His realm, and He will give us peace (Isa. 26:3). The natural eye focuses on our physical existence but the spiritual eye locks into what really matters.
Back to our test today - when money becomes our #1 obsession, it can put blinders on our eyes and that can ruin our spiritual life. Focusing on the material things will keep us from finding the most valuable thing – our relationship with God. If we focus on how much we can get here, we may have a lot of material goods, but often at the expense of our relationship with God. We live in a society that tells us to (as one of my mentors used to say) – “Get all you can, as long as you can, put it in a can, and then sit on the can.”
If our thoughts are filled with how we can deposit treasures in heaven, our bodies will be full of light. We will be serving God and our fellow man with the blessings that He gives us. We will find true deep-seated happiness in what He gives.
Today, where do you focus? Where is your mind?
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