Eyes Have It!

Of the five human senses—touch, hearing, sight, taste and smell—Jesus spoke of seeing and our eyes. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be filled with darkness.”

What’s the good Lord saying? Whatever catches your eye catches you. So be careful what you look at. Witness how the constant barrage of advertisements on television, in print, and on billboards can fill us with the accursed love of having. And that can lead to the slavery of indebtedness.

But Jesus means more. Not just what you look upon, but how you see it. For instance, I know a woman with anorexia. I see her as tall, slender, and bit over-devoted to fitness. But she looks at herself in the mirror and sees herself as fat. And it sets off a spasm of self-loathing, anger, and control.

A coach endures an 0-12 season. The world sees his team as losers. But Coach tells me that his players showed real grit and determination.

A man sees the church as boring, irrelevant, and full of hypocrites. But I see it as a hospital for sinners, redemptive, full of growing people.

The question is, who sees clearly?

Jesus is saying we must see life through God’s eyes, through the lens of Scripture.

During His ministry, Jesus often corrected people’s seeing. A harlot knelt at His feet, wet His feet with tears, and wiped them clean with her hair. Then she anointed him with expensive perfume. The Pharisees only saw a harlot and an effusive act. Judas saw wasted nard that could have been sold for good cash money. Jesus saw a sinful woman coming for mercy.  He saw her actions as worship.

It takes practice. Scripture memorization helps. But we can see that the Word of God dwells in us richly (Colossians 3:16) and we can look upon the world with God’s eyes. Both in what we see and how we see it.