Matthew 6:22-23 (NASB) - 22 "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
You may or may not be familiar with the above scripture. A few years ago while my pastor was preaching in Matthew 6 a thought about this scripture came to me. That thought was this - How many times do we try to put glasses on our self and try to self, or humanly, correct sin, instead of allowing God to do a spiritual Lasik's on us where we are permanently corrected.
This may not make sense but let me explain a bit. Think about what glasses do, they allow us to see better, but it is not permanent. You remove them, and you go return to having bad eyesight. Glasses are an artificial means of covering a flawed interior problem. Sure we see better, but the real problem, our bad eyes, is not corrected. That is sort of like us trying to correct, or justify, our own sins. We use an artificial and temporary means to say we are justified. We "correct" the problem well enough that we do not suffer significantly from it short term, but in reality it is just covered up. It is not solved.
That is also how the world is acting when they say "Well I am nice, I am a good person, etc so I must be going to Heaven". They are using artificial and false arguments to justify their actions and their lives. They do not see the problem with how they are living and the cost of sin in their lives. Their view is skewed by an artificial / human means, and they do not see the internal problem that needs correction.
Then of course there is the real solution. Permanent correction of the internal flaw. That is what Lasik's does for our human eyes (yes, yes I know it Lasik’s is not permanent and at 40 to 50 you still have to get reading glasses, but go with me here and hopefully you will see my point in the end), and what God does to our human soul. The correction God provides is not dependent on external tools or individual actions to succeed, nor does it require external or additional hardware, it is permanent. Once it is complete, the new situation is so much better then the previous state that the person will never go back to how they were before. When it comes to their eyesight, people do not get Lasik's and go - "Man I miss my glasses, I want to get them back, undo the operation", and people that really meet God - I believe - will not desire to go back to their previous state. The new and better way of living makes them appreciate their new state, as well as making them empathize with those that are still suffering. They become like a recent Lasik patient - they tell everyone they meet how much better their new life is.
Unfortunately, the spiritual changes tend to become less noticeable to and in people over time. They get so use to their new life that it no longer seems as special. Since it is no longer special, and new, to them they lose interest in it and also telling others about it. Some reach a point where their new life is just a personally thing. They are just not as serious about talking about “the procedure” as they were directly after the operation. It has become a personal thing to them and it is no longer something they want to tell others about.
Maybe, as the operation moves into the past, they begin to revert to some old habits. Sure they do not want to return entirely to the old way, but they really don’t care about how they act day to day anymore as the “operation” was permanently and changed them forever right?. They don’t have to worry about going back to where they use to be, right? They don’t have to worry about what they do? In the end, since the operation was permanent, why worry about doing anything different then what they use too.
Others are just are not as thankful as they should be for being changed permanently. They don’t want to live how they use too, but they also refuse to live like they have been changed permanently either. They refuse to be the same people they use to be, and they refuse to be the people they are being called to be either. All of their refusals lead to a life of divided loyalties, thoughts, habits, and ways. The underlying problem here is that the Bible teaches, and common sense reinforces, that a divided house can not and will not stand.
This note may not make a lot of sense on the first read, if it does not re-read it and think about. I promise when it came to me it did make sense. Simply put I guess I am saying that a meeting with God should be as revolutionary to us as never having to wear glasses again is to someone with bad human eyes. Obviously, the Bible is not talking about glasses, and such, but I just really thought it was neat how timeless the word of God was in that I could see a modern parallel to the concept of bad eyes (pre relationship and lost) and good eyes (post relationship, God directed and God reborn), and how significantly different human means and heavenly means are to correct problems. This is just one more way God seems to constantly show me things in my life and world that teach me the timeless object lessons of the Bible.
Have a great and blessed day as you bask in the joy of one more day in the glory of the risen savior Christ our King. He is alive, and working today to correct not just our vision but our life.
