Sermon On The Mount: The Direction Of Your Life

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 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 that darkness!

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew 6:22-24 (NKJV)*

The pathways of Christians must go upward. Toward Heaven, since it's where we started… and where we belong… and where we’ll return, 'For our citizenship is in Heaven' (Philippians 3:20).

  • Not toward our personal career goals.

  • Nor toward our church or family goals.

  • Not even our most admirable goals…

  • Like education or philanthropy.

Our direction must look toward God first. He’ll guide us in all of our decisions. As a Man, Jesus is our Example.

But where do we point our physical eyes--on a day-to-day, look-by-look basis? That's a life-making or life-breaking choice.

Christians MUST CHOOSE to focus on Jesus. But how? He’s not visible in our world today. (How mistaken we are to buy that lie.)

Open your Bible. You CAN see Him there. ‘The Word become flesh and dwelt among us’ (John1:14). He dwells with us now,

  • If we invite Him,

  • If we consult Him,

  • If we look at Him,

  • If we follow Him!

To make it even easier for us, on top of His written and spoken Word, Jesus sends us His Own Holy Spirit: our most intimate and personal Guide…

'When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all Truth' (John 16:13). All Truth is Jesus. He’ll lead us on the right path every time: 'Your ears shall hear a Word behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in it' ' (Isaiah 30:21).

Significantly, the Spirit places Himself BEHIND us. (Not in front, since God wants us to trust Him.) But if we pause and listen, we’ll hear Him--which ensures we 'Walk by faith, not by sight' (2 Corinthians 5:7).

So don't get distracted by what you see, or what you don't see. That's the devil’s game.

When Jesus says, 'The lamp of the body is the eye,' He’s telling us to take care where we look.

Therefore, be intentional with your eyes:

  • Choose to see the good.

  • Choose to see the light.

  • Choose to see HIs Life.

Avoid “eye candy” and idol worship. Because indulging the lust of the eyes…can lead us to a darkness of the soul.

When Jesus says, 'No one can serve two masters,' He presents a core temptation: mammon: 'the personification of riches and greed in the form of a false god' (Collins English Dictionary).

We can’t worship mammon and worship God. He demands a wholehearted commitment. To be our first Love, but the choice is ours.

Sermon On The Mount: The Direction Of Your Life (Part 21)

* Matthew Henry's Concise Bible Commentary on Matthew 6:19-24:

'Worldly-mindedness is a common and fatal symptom of hypocrisy, for by no sin can Satan have a surer and faster hold of the soul, under the cloak of a profession of religion. Something the soul will have, which it looks upon as the best thing; in which it has pleasure and confidence above other things. Christ counsels to make our best things the joys and glories of the other world, those things not seen which are eternal, and to place our happiness in them. There are treasures in heaven. It is our wisdom to give all diligence to make our title to eternal life sure through Jesus Christ, and to look on all things here below, as not worthy to be compared with it, and to be content with nothing short of it. It is happiness above and beyond the changes and chances of time, an inheritance incorruptible. The worldly man is wrong in his first principle; therefore all his reasonings and actions therefrom must be wrong. It is equally to be applied to false religion; that which is deemed light is thick darkness. This is an awful, but a common case; we should therefore carefully examine our leading principles by the word of God, with earnest prayer for the teaching of his Spirit. A man may do some service to two masters, but he can devote himself to the service of no more than one. God requires the whole heart, and will not share it with the world. When two masters oppose each other, no man can serve both. He who holds to the world and loves it, must despise God; he who loves God, must give up the friendship of the world.'

NOTE: This is a 2023 update of a 2013 Carey Lewis Devotion. You may see notes to 'Actors, Models & Talent for Christ.' If you think you're not in show business, think again. Shakespeare said, 'All the world's a stage and all its men and women merely players. Mostly true. But you're not merely players. You are messengers and ambassadors for the King of kings.

Carey Arban