Our Footsteps: If Your Eye is Clear

Friday, June 20, 2008

If Your Eye is Clear

"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" - Matthew 6:22-23

This is a pretty strange passage at first glance (no pun intended). What in the world does this phrase 'if your eye is clear' mean?

I've been studying a little about William Tyndale. He lived in the early 1500's and his goal in life, his single devotion, his reason for living and dying could be summed up in his burning passion and desire to translate the Bible from the original language of Greek and Hebrew into an ordinary English version available for anyone and everyone to read and understand. We owe Tyndale a debt of gratitude. He gave up his life for this single-minded devotion.

We could say that Tyndale's 'eye was clear'. This is what the phrase means: singleness of mind, clear focus, intent on one purpose. The eye is an illustration of the heart - the heart is the eye of the soul. J.C. Ryle made the following comment that fits well with this passage that we find in the Sermon on the Mount: "Singleness of purpose is one great secret of spiritual prosperity".

We are a fragmented people. Ours is a culture of rushing everywhere to do everything. Consequently, we excel at nothing. Christians are the worst of all people when it comes to having single-minded devotion to Christ. We have lost the simplicity of knowing Christ because piled on top of work and family commitments, we have a million church activities to keep us busy. I am not against church activities, but when they interrupt our 'singleness of purpose', then there is a serious problem.

God, let my eyes be clear. Rid my life of all activities that come between me and you.
Amen.

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.