Post Tagged with: "Matthew"

A Single Focus

Light Day 27: Matthew 6:19-24

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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!
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

A double-minded nature corrupts and blurs the light we have within us. If we simultaneously attempt to lay up treasures both on earth and in heaven, we will do neither well. When one eye gazes one direction and the other eye gazes the other direction, confusion and misdirection results.

Similarly, if we attempt to serve two masters – God and the world’s system – we end up serving neither. As James succinctly writes:

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Instead, Jesus Christ calls us to be single: singly-minded, singly-focused. While some might say you’re so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good, Jesus says the opposite: Read more

Reflecting the Son

Light Day 26: Matthew 5:11-16

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

After harvest, a farmer stored his potatoes in the darkest corner of his basement. A few weeks later, he noticed that they had begun to sprout. Puzzled, he examined the cellar more closely.  Read more

How Changing Your Mind is Receiving Light

Light Day 23: Matthew 4:10-17

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of every word of God!

Even where Jesus chose to live was a fulfillment of God’s word through Isaiah. The beginning of the dawning of the great light came upon God’s people in His time, in His place, and by His methods as Jesus began to bring the words and person of Light to Capernaum:

 Read more