The power of the eye.
Our eyes are important. They allow us to see what is before us and around us. Our eyes help us size up the competition. They keep us from stumbling over things that get in our way. They let us see and then avoid things that could potentially harm us. Sometimes they show us the things we love and sometimes the things we don’t. They allow us to experience the warmth of a smile or a beautiful sunrise. Your eyes are the gateway to your soul. The things which they see influence our moods making us happy or angry. What we see can cause us to scream in fear and even jump for joy. Yes, What we allow through the gateway of the eyes can shape us into versions of ourselves we might not ever be without our eyes. How could you possibly experience the innocent smile of a child without first seeing what it looks like? Take a moment to think about what you see when you look in the mirror. Are you happy with what you see? Do you wish you could see a different version of yourself? Do you think it’s possible that just maybe you might perceive yourself differently if you weren’t able to see what you look like?
We must protect our eyes.
Whether they are required at our jobs or we use them while working in the yard. Most of us have used safety glasses. We wear them to protect our eyes from objects that might damage them. Almost everyone owns a pair of sunglasses. When the sun is bright we wear them to keep the sun’s rays from damaging our eyes. It’s not that we stop using our eyes because we are afraid of what could happen to them. It is that we know to maintain healthy eyes for the best vision we can have we must properly protect the eyes from any accidental damages. Take a welder for instance, he can create things of strength and beauty. But, if he welds without the proper shield between him and the bright lights that occur during the welding process he can be blinded. The very thing through which his creativity thrives can damage his vision if he doesn’t place the proper barriers between him and his work. The same is true for our spirit man. The eyes are the gateway to our souls. If we don’t use the proper safety equipment to prevent damage to our inner vision it can damage us spiritually. We need to set the proper barriers and safety zones that allow us to see things at a distance and then determine their worth before allowing them to inhabit us. If we allow the wrong things to enter through the eyes it can change us and cause us to become disconnected from the Father. Nothing is worth being apart from the Father.
Matthew 6:22-23 ESV The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness…..
We must be careful that what we are allowing to penetrate our eyes and enter our soul is bringing light to all we do. If not, then darkness will overtake our vision. When something gets into our eyes it distorts what we do see. We can no longer see things clearly. Our vision becomes blurry and we can’t step any further until our vision clears enough to see what is in front of us. It is no different for our spirit man. If you allow the wrong things to infect the eyes it will distort your vision and until the eye is completely healed, the view will remain perverted. As intricate as the eye is all it takes is a small piece of dust to keep you from seeing clearly. We must learn to protect our spirit man from even the smallest things that try to enter. Any foriegn objects that we allow will corrupt our view of everything both spiritually and physically. Think about this for a moment . Your brain receives thousands of signals per second from your eyes. Even the slightest changes in lighting or minor movements around you are all recorded by the eye and then transmitted to the brain for sorting and storing for future references. That’s millions of images in an hour. The images are stored like data on a flash drive. Only this is in you. Stored in your brain. Your personal memory. You can’t just unplug it or perform a quick format to remove it all. Once you allow your eyes to look at something it is forever stored for future reference. Clearing out that memory is harder to do than if you never stored it to begin with. Even after you stop looking at or watching or reading things that are bad for the spirit man the physical brain has stored those images. Now, until complete healing from the Father takes place, those images can cause confusion and distract you from the true vision of the Father.
The all seeing defense system.
When our eyes detect something getting too close to them the eyelid automatically closes to defend from unwanted intruders. If a splinter or a piece of dust does get to the eye there are tiny ducts around the eye that immediately begin to flush the eye with water. The eye automatically tries to cleanse itself of the intruder. These are physical warnings to us that the eyes have been compromised. Our bodies immediately react and begin to flush the intruder out of the eyes without us having to think of what to do because our bodies are designed to protect and heal themselves. Our Spirit man has a defense mechanism called the Holy Spirit and we have been given the tools to keep our spirit man in tip top shape all these tools are in the Bible. The Bible gives us guidelines and insight into what is good and bad for us. It tells us how to defend against intruders that try to enter into our hearts and pollute our souls. It gives us all the wisdom and knowledge of the men and women who have gone before us and even the guidance of Jesus himself. The Holy Spirit is our auto-defense mechanism. It comforts us and protects us. The Holy Spirit convicts us when foreign objects try to enter and cause harm to us. The Holy Spirit discerns those things which we may not see as bad and quickens our spirit to warn us. Just as with the physical warnings like your eyes burning or watering if we ignore them and things get stuck in our eyes it can cause long term and even permanent damage. It is the same with the spirit man. When we feel convicted in the spirit and we ignore it or we know that something goes directly against what we have read in the Bible and we don’t stop to remove the objects immediately, we are asking for damage that can take a long time to heal. The Bible is very adamant about how important it is to protect our spirit man from sinful things that come through the eyes.
Matthew 5:29 ESV If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
Now when the Father went through so much to create us in such detail and he says tear it out and throw it away that is a bold statement. Our creator would rather us live with a physically damaged body than be separated from Him for eternity. I can’t imagine thinking of one of my children going through life with a physical handicap of any sort. I can’t even imagine them intentionally harming their bodies for any reason whatsoever. So, as a Father myself, I consider it a very strong statement for our heavenly Father who designed every intricate facate of our body to say pluck it out or cut it off no matter what it may be. As a father it is incomprehensible to think bodily harm on my children. I would rather have my life cut short than anything harm theirs. So, we must understand the importance of the situation we present to our souls when we allow things to enter in through the gates of the eyes to be stored in our minds. Especially things that can bring about an eternal separation from the very God who gave all to save us.
So what’s getting in your eye?
I know that as men we immediately think of things like lust and pornography. Some of you may have even been delivered of those things but just because you have found deliverance of those things doesn’t mean you don’t have other things attacking your eyes. It could be greed or hate. How about comparison? Why else would you want to change what you see in the mirror every morning? Maybe you have refused someone forgiveness. Unforgiveness and bitterness are easy to allow in through the eyes. Every time we see that person it eats at us a little more. All these can cause irritation of the eyes and pervert our views of God and our relationship with Him. Please don’t be so quick to think that just because you have walked through a thing or two that you don’t still have some vision issues. Just because you see better than you did doesn’t mean that your vision is clear. It is important that we understand our thought of better is only gauged by where we came out of not out of what God’s best is for us. So please be careful of settling for your version of better and not striving for God’s best in all you do. Please take the time to step back and humble yourselves before God and ask Him to show you the foriegn object or objects that may be clouding your view of Him. Let Him show you what harmful things you’ve been letting through the gates. Remember we have another generation coming up behind us that should soon be taking our places on the wall for the kingdom of God. But instead many are dealing with what they think are their problems when the truth is a lot of them are just inheriting our sins. Sins we have allowed for too long to penetrate the gates of our souls and wreak havoc on our eternal walk. So what is worth today? What will it cost us tomorrow? When will we say no more and be the generation in our family that became the change. I know when my son and daughter step up to take my place on the wall I want them to have a solid foundation to stand on. Not one riddled with curses because I wasn’t man enough to reach out and ask for help. I want better for them than what was left for me. It is time to protect the eyes at all costs. The Gates must be secured!
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action changes the world.- Joel A. Barker
M.U.S.C.L.E. 