If Your Eye Be Single

Taken from a series of letters that Alan wrote to our sons, when they were younger.

Dear Sons,

Jesus once said "If your eye be single - your whole body will be

full of light." Two things stand out from His statement. First, our

eyes may not always be "single" all the time. Second, it must also mean that it is possible to have only some parts of our body with light while other parts are still in the dark. There may be areas in our lives that are blocking the light from shining in.

The opposite of "single" is "multiple" or "many." The problem

with many peoples' spiritual vision is that they are trying to look at

more things than one at the same time. We will never see clearly while trying to see what pleases ourselves and what pleases God at the same time. Only when our focus is entirely upon pleasing the Lord will things become clear to us.

The light that Jesus was referring to is "the ability to see clearly". That is what light does - it enables us to see things accurately. This is called "visibility." How is the visibility inside you today? When there are areas in our lives that we are not seeing clearly - it is because God's light is not shining in that area. Jesus was warning His disciples about the danger of having poor "visibility" inside themselves.

There are times when a person with good spiritual visibility can

see things in us that we can not see ourselves. This is because they

have light in areas that we don't have ourselves. When this happens, we can either love the light they have or resent it and reject it because "we can't see it ourselves."

Loving the light or hating the light is going to be part of what

we are all judged for on the day of judgment. Jesus said "This is the

verdict - that light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than the light - because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Whoever does truth comes into the light that it might be seen clearly that what he has done - he did in God."

There are times when rather than loving the light we will argue

against it. Why - because we don't want to see ourselves in the way the true light makes us look. Maybe we think we are doing well, but in the true light it will be seen that we have not done our work well.

Sometimes we see ourselves as seeking God but if more light came we might be exposed as lazy or double-minded. Only those who love the light will "walk in the light". John the apostle wrote "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." When we love the light and walk in it, we allow the Holy Spirit to expose and reveal those areas in our lives that we haven't seen yet. As we see them, we can then confess them so that the blood of Jesus can cleanse our sins as we recognize them and turn away from continuing in them.

Sometimes mom or dad, maybe a brother or sister, see an area

before we do. How do we react when they attempt to share some light with us? Do we love the light, or do we prefer our own view, even if it is in the dark. I pray for both of you that you learn to love the truth, receive the light and walk in it. Proverbs 4:18 says "The path of the righteous is as the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter until the full light of day." May this be the path we choose to walk in.

Love,  Dad

'"Careless" is akin to apathy.  The lack of concern for things that ought to concern us.  But "carefree," on the other hand, is release.  It is the surrender of preference, not because it is not a concerning matter, but because (like Mary) a choice has been made for something better.  We really can only attend to one matter (and one master) at a time, after all." ~Kelly Woodford

"What do our heavy hearts prove?~that other things are sweeter to us than His will, that we have not attained to the full mastery of our true freedom the full perception of its power, that our son ship is yet but faintly realized, and its blessedness not yet proved and known. Our consent would turn our trials into obedience. By consenting we make them our own, and offer them with ourselves again to Him." ~H.E. Manning