Journal Entry // March 20, 2022
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.
Luke 11:34 ESV
How I view the circumstances of my life and the world around me through the lens of the gospel is what this passage is getting at. My eye direcst and guides me through this world and as such, it informs and directs not only the content of what I allow to penetrate my body and mind but how I view these things from a spiritual perspective. It is essential that my eye is healthy. This allows my entire body to be full of light. To be full of the gospel of Christ. When my eye leads me astray and I begin to view the things around me from a worldly perspective, the darkness grows and swells within me.
This verse is not primarily teaching me to be careful about what images and situations I allow into my body. This is definitely true and I should be mindful, but I think this passage is primarily teaching me to be more spiritually discerning about what I am witnessing. Everything I see around me, needs to be filtered through the light of the gospel. This spiritual discerning leading to understanding is what will fill my body with light. It is not enough to shelter my mind from temptation. I must also learn how to navigate a world full of sin and temptation.
What does this look like in practice? Everything needs to be seen through the eye of Christ. Am I engaging with a person who is denigrating me? I must look to the life of Christ to understand about patience and humility. Am I struggling to not fulfill the desires of my flesh? I must look to the life of Christ to understand purity. All of this is centered around a healthy understanding of the life of Christ and as such, I must be regularly and intentionally spending time in God’s word. Not just reading my daily chapters to tick off a box on my to-do list, but a deep, passionate, whole-hearted engagement with Jesus in his word.
As I engage with Jesus in his word, I meditate and reflect on what his word is teaching me. I need to do the hard work of moving this knowledge of his word in my mind to a wisdom of his word in my heart. I need to couple knowledge and wisdom to not only know the right answer, but how to actually apply that knowledge in faithful obedience. Then my eye will be healthy. Then my eye will see the person in front of me and love them. Truly love them as Jesus does.
I want healthy eyes. I want eyes that are intensely focused on Jesus and see everything through his eyes. I want to live a life that humbly understands my weakness and finds strength in Christ alone. I want to engage with people of every sort. Each person reflects Christ in some manner. Each person I engage with is of great worth and value to Jesus and I want to value them as well. Including myself!