If Your Eye is Evil Matthew 6:23

Matthew shared how Jesus told His disciples, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light”, and in chapter six and verse twenty-three of his book, Matthew shared how Jesus told His disciples what happens, “if your eye is evil” where we read:

But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!

The verse reads, “But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness.” Matthew began with the word, “but” which means “moreover and” “if your eye” or “whether the disciples' vision and sight which the eye provides” “is evil” which means “exists as bad nature or condition, is diseased or blind and wicked”, “your whole body” or “the disciples' entire and complete physical body” “shall be full of darkness” which means “will be composed as opaque and benighted”. Jesus told His disciples if their “eye” was “blighted or opaque”, their entire bodies would be the same.

The verse continues, “ If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew added the words, “if therefore” or “whether then, accordingly, consequently and these things being so” “the light” which means “the candle, lamp or illumination” “that is in you” or “that is within the disciples” “be darkness” which means “is blighted or opaque”, “how great” or “how massive, large, long and many” “is that darkness” which means “is that opaqueness and benighted state”. Jesus told His disciples if their inner “illumination” was “opaque”, the result would be a “massive” amount of “blindness” within them.

When we consider Matthew's words in this verse, we see how important it is to have an “eye” and “light” that is according to God's measure and way. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), and those who receive Jesus Christ as their personal “Savior and Lord” gain the “light” of God within them. Some people wonder how people can be so “wicked, evil and of a bad attitude”, and Jesus answered that question by sharing how it is a condition of the “eye and light” within them. When “darkness” is within a person, they manifest “darkness”, and when the “light” of Jesus Christ is within, the demonstrate an “illumination” of God to the world. “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14)

Next time Jesus tells His disciples, “no man can serve two masters”, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

Until tomorrow…there is more…

Look for the daily devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation”, the marriage book “So, You Want to Be Married”, “One Year in the Sermon on the Mount” and the new poetry book "Random Mushrooms Volumes I and II" and the new novel "Elizabeth County" in all major bookstore sites, http://www.amazon.com ; http://www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore.