Fixing the Eye on the Kingdom
The first principle in the lifestyle pattern involves the eye. We get it from these words of Jesus: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6.22, 23.) This principle is the way to subject, avoid, or get rid of, worldly treasures.
We can become divided between money and God by what we take in through the eye. The word ‘single’ conveys the idea of ‘singleness of purpose.’ What we look at influences our purpose in life. If we look at good things, the light that goes in through the eye will light up the body. But if we take in evil things, light will be shut out, and the body will dim. This is true for the individual disciple as well as for a body of disciples that make up a local church. The light of the local body is only as bright as the individual bodies that are in it. When a disciple joins a church that is in darkness, he runs the risk of having his light dimmed.
We are accountable to God and responsible to each other for the images that we allow to pass through the eye. The ‘evil eye’ of verse 23 is the eye of covetousness and envy. We look at, then we long for, what the Lord forbids us to have. When we have done this, we have coveted; we have begun to envy. Then we prepare to serve mammon to procure the treasures that we want. By this time our body is growing dark because our eye is fixed on the world.
What is the average disciple looking at today? How numerous are the evil images that are presented to the eye! How much greater are we tempted in this than were the first disciples! How much more are we tempted to look than they? But how much might our blessing be if we can resist the more formidable temptation?
It is through the eye that the colors of the rainbow remind us of God’s ancient promise to never flood the world again. But it is also through the eye that the coat of many colors identified the favorite son of Jacob. God directs our eye to the sky; but man trains his eye on his favorite treasure. In like manner, the world wants to train our eye on its coat of many colors to extract money that is entrusted to us to further God’s designs. We have a utilitarian device called the internet that will take us around the world in seconds to offer us every treasure imaginable, and the treasure may be accessed by the push of a button from the comfort of home. Many such devices are used to bring disciples under foreign dominion. How many disciples are in bondage to devices that are under the dominion of the ‘god of this world?’
To keep from coveting through the eye, we must turn away from what worldly people commonly put before it. The television is nothing but a box of images for an evil eye to look at. Who needs it? Who should want it? Who should risk having it? To protect our light we must also turn our faces from the tempting magazine covers, and resist turning a page if the cover suggests evil intent. It is not necessary to read trashy magazines or turn to gaudy sites to get our news; much that is newsworthy someone will tell us about anyway. The conscience can become darkened if we do not guard what passes through the eye. When that happens, what is good is hardly discerned from what is evil. If we answer in the affirmative to the following questions, our light has become dim by the images that we have allowed to enter through the eye. Are we familiar with the latest television programs? Are we able to discuss their plots? Can we hum today’s commercial jingles? Do we anticipate the images that we know are between the covers of the magazine that we reach for? Is our inner eye held hostage to music videos? If we feel pangs of guilt from indulging in any of the foregoing, we are not too far gone; we may reform. If we balk at such questions, we are dark indeed; our recoiling should make us wonder at regeneration, whether we have experienced one or not. If we are Christians, we don’t mind being preached to; we know that we can do better and that our light can burn brighter. By shielding the eye from evil, we can block out the temptation to lay up treasures on earth. We can fix our eye on God’s kingdom and lay up treasures in heaven instead.
Money is the way to the treasures that we want. No matter what we covet and envy, money is the conventional medium by which to acquire these treasures. This is why the text reads, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” We serve mammon to get the things that we want. But if we shield the eye from taking in the images of the items that we covet and envy, we will not be tempted to serve money to get these treasures. Treasures on earth are objects that degenerate. But not all treasures are inanimate. To the disciple who covets the woman on the street, the immoral woman on the screen, the naughty woman on the cover of a magazine, or the nude harlot between the pages of a book, she is the object of his desire. A man will serve mammon to get the women, or at least to get pictures or movies of them. To the woman who covets the latest furniture in the ‘home magazines,’ the next pair of shoes that she does not need, or the new face that the doctor can give to her, these become the objects of her desire, and she will serve mammon to get these treasures.
Whatever image we allow to enter through the eye remains with us, maybe for life. When we look, pathways along what scientists call synapses are opened, and what we see is stored in our memory. The more often the memory is recalled, the more that particular path is trod, until the path becomes a highway. Recall an image often enough, and it becomes next to impossible to push it out of the mind’s eye. Is this not why so many people commit suicide? They brood on a lost love so much that they are tempted to kill themselves rather than live without the person that they obsess over. How tragic this is when the person obsessed over and killed for is not an ideal specimen of humanity, but just another sinner come short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23.) It would make some sense if a person committed suicide on account of unity with a perfect mate being missed. But even the prettiest people are more depraved than perfect. If we saw people as God sees them, we would desire them less and desire heaven more. That is why we need to read the Bible more, for the nature of man is therein exposed to view. It is often in the dark with our eyes closed that we review the images of the day; with the inner eye of imagination we turn the images into fantasy and immoral longing. If this will not cause a suicide, it will hinder the process of sanctification. That which is looked at can be called forth to be played with years later; this is to the detriment of God’s dominion over our lives. What we look at today matters for tomorrow. The evil eye of envy can determine for us the kind of treasures that we lay up. The negative exercise of looking away from evil frees us up to store treasures in heaven. Covetousness is perhaps the best word to define this desire for treasures that we don’t have, because right now these treasures belong to someone else. The woman might belong to another man. She might belong to the devil. She might belong to God. She is not ours.
When envy matures inside of us, we want to be envied by others. We look. We envy. Then we want to be seen and envied. If we become dark with envy, how dark will our darkness be! In the passage we read, ‘how great is that darkness!’ How dark? We will end up hating God because he stands between us and the treasures that we want. We will try to serve both God and mammon, and we will rationalize our behavior with poor arguments and bad theology. We can easily find support for our ‘treasure on earth’ lifestyle. Almost any book chosen at random will support us in it. Almost any app on the computer will lend its helping hand. But to serve both God and money is to attempt the impossible. If we try to serve both, we will put a god before God. We will have violated the first and great commandment: to love the Lord God with the whole heart, soul, and mind. ‘Mammon’ is personified in the text (verse 24) to remind us that when we serve mammon to obtain treasures on earth, we are serving an entity, a master, a god: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Who is this mammon-god but the devil in money’s clothes? Serving mammon is idolatry. What we stare at determines who we worship.
What we gaze at becomes the treasure that we want. We get the treasure that we want by serving mammon instead of God. By this fact, we can understand the importance of fixing the eye on the kingdom. We must exhort one another by repeating the words of Jesus: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.” Lay them up in heaven. Why should we do it? Because our heart will be where our treasure is, and our treasure should be where our Saviour is. How can we help ourselves from laying up the wrong treasures? We help ourselves by applying the principle of eye discipline. We can turn our head. We can refocus. We can moderate our lifestyle by changing what we look at. The light of our body depends on it. Our testimony depends on it. The degree of God’s dominion over us depends on it. Treasures in heaven depend on it. The eye is fixed on the kingdom of God when the eye turns away from treasures on earth.
How did Jesus resist envy? How did Jesus resist the urge to lay up treasures on earth? His eye did not become an evil eye of envy, because he kept his eye under obedience. His eye was fixed on the kingdom of God, not on the kingdoms of this world and what they have to offer. This does not mean that Jesus never enjoyed looking at things. Surely nobody enjoyed to look more than Jesus did, for he could see deeper into nature than anyone else. Given his parables, he was a keen observer. He fixed his eye on good things. He looked with the pure and discerning eye of a Man in perfect communion with his Father. His eye was single. His body was full of light. He is called, in Scripture, ‘the light of the world’ (John 8.12.) And even though he is now ascended from the world, he is still the light of the world through Christians who are in the world because Christians are themselves ‘the light of the world’ (Matthew 5.14.) They are called the light of the world by no one less than the Lord Jesus. If we are generously styled ‘the light of the world,’ our duty is to shine, lest we seem to make a liar of both Scripture and Saviour.
Jesus’ body was full of light because his eye was single; it had oneness of purpose. He diffused that light through teaching. Jesus looked at people, cities, fields, trees, and birds; but he saw more than people, cities, fields, trees, and birds. Because his eye was perfectly fixed on the kingdom of God, Jesus looked out and saw spiritual lessons in the physical dimension. What do we see when we look at a lily? An orange flower with spots on it? In the lily, Jesus saw a moral that could help the disciple overcome anxiety and to trust God in a deeper way. The other day a friend saw snow crystals in the air where the sun shone just right; after thinking about it she deduced that the crystals must have been just as present where the sun wasn’t showing them. Likewise, there are more angels about us than men have ever seen: ministering spirits called ‘a flame of fire’ (Hebrews 1.7.) Light from above will make them visible sometimes, as it happened for Elisha and his servant (2 Kings 6.17.) Light lends visibility to a person whose eye is rightly fixed. I knew this man once who obsessed about the likelihood of seeing an angel. But how likely was he to see one since he was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show regularly? Oprah viewers are not the kind of people who witness angels. By fixing the eye on the kingdom, even God, in some real sense, will be seen one day by genuine disciples. How do we approach this vision while on earth? Maybe we go to church. But what church? What a world away from a vision of God are lying wonders in voodoo churches where miracles are as common and fake as dyed hair! The first thing to do to draw near to a vision of God is to get farther from illusions.
If we are not careful to guard our eye from evil, we will never see the way that Jesus saw; we will not see the spiritual in the natural. All we will see are the treasures that we have or want. The next time you are in a store, look around and realize that every item you see has come from the earth. I was shocked when I first discerned this. All of it is nothing but soil, rock, or wood. Treasures are earthy, not heavenly. The person whose habit is to consume what is earthy is in danger of consuming darkness and becoming as earthy as what he consumes; he has no light with which to see spiritual lessons. The Christian should be so heavenly that every object he looks at yields a spiritual lesson. It is in this vein that Augustine says that the Christian should ‘heavenlize earthly things’ as much as the men of the world ‘earthlize heavenly things.’ It should become instinctive for us to do so. One day while walking down my street I saw this girl chase a boy. As she ran to catch him, she said, “Justice, I will do anything for you!” This confused me until I realized that the boy’s name must be ‘Justus.’ By then I was in a reverie about Jesus running after Justice in order to obey the law and to satisfy the wrath of God for the sins of fallen men. The Christian should be an observer more than a consumer. He should be detached from the earth, as it were, already ascending to heaven, looking down and judging what he sees by God’s heavenly Book. Indeed, the saint is on his way to becoming something akin to an incarnate angel, says Thomas Case, the Puritan. What better thing to call a fully saved saint? When the resurrection takes place, and along with it the redemption of the body, body and soul will reunite, and glorified saints will be the blessed result. Saints will be glorified; and it is not too much to say that they will be angelified.
The issue of treasure must be brought under the dominion of God. This is achieved by obedience to the first principle of fixing the eye on the kingdom. Then one can proceed to trust God for the essentials, which is the second principle. The disciple who does not live out the first principle will hardly attain to the second.
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