MASTERED BY LIGHT
OR
MANIPULATED BY DARKNESS
SUNDAY JULY 14, 2019
Scripture To Consider:
“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 that light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”
“No one can serve two masters; for either he [or she] will hate the one and love the other, or else he [or she] will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money or wealth].” Matthew 6.22-24
Something To Consider:
The eye is the gateway to our spirit or the floodgate to our flesh. Spiritually speaking, we act upon what we see through the eye gate. If that which is entering in through the passageway of our eye is good, then most likely we will act or react accordingly. If what enters the portal of our eye is evil, degrading, negative, or improper, then that which exits us as habitual character traits will in turn be of likeness in nature and behavior.
Jesus equates light with good and darkness with that which is evil. Each of these two powerful influencing factors can greatly impact us in one direction or the other. They do not cross paths. They actually travel towards totally opposite destinations. And the journey begins with small subtle steps in one or the other direction, towards good or towards evil.
The ancients held light to be holy, therefore, the Scriptures associate light with God and with the Word of God. The writer of Psalm 119 declared of the illuminating light of God’s Word in verse 105; “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” In other words, we are admonished to be mastered by the light of God’s Word, and our lives to be mastered by the illuminating path it lays out before all who wish to follow Christ and receive in the end, by enduring to the end, eternal life!
Something Else To Consider:
Therefore, as leaders in training we must guard against forced or voluntary entry of any intruding darkness. More importantly, we should guard against the intrusion of false imitation look alike light, disguised on the surface as light, but is nothing more than deceptive darkened heresies. Peter wrote in his farewell letter in 2 Peter 2.3-4; “And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth is blasphemed. By covetousness [the love of money] they will exploit you [make merchandise of you] with deceptive words; for a long time their destruction does not slumber.”
Let us therefore, be wise in what we watch, wise in what we read, and wise in what we involve ourselves in. Again, according to the writer of Psalm 119, we are wisely instructed in verse 130; “The entrance of Your Words [God’s Word] gives light and understanding to the unwise.” How much of God’s Word are we therefore allowing entrance into our lives either through the eye gate or ear gate? Romans 10.17 explicitly states, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
That is the reason I read the Word of God aloud to my wife and to myself in private. We need all the faith the Word of God will permit! We need all the light of truth within the Word of God to keep us on the straight and narrow, sometimes constricting and less traveled path that in the end leads all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus to eternal life. According to the Word of God, all humankind is in need of more light and to be mastered by the light of God’s Word. Therefore, that is the purpose of this website, According to Jesus!
Something More To Consider:
Jesus soberly reminds us, “No one can serve two masters; for either he [or she] will hate the one and love the other, or else he [or she] will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money or wealth].” We cannot waffle back and forth between two masters. Our predicament demands a decision. Either we serve a merciful Master of light and love, or we serve a master of darkness, deception, destruction, and spiritual death.
Will we choose to serve God, the true Light of the world, or will we choose to serve the worldly riches of mammon? God gives us great light to help with our life saving escape from the imprisoned dungeon of darkness and the exploitation of earthly decaying treasures. Therefore, what is it that we are allowing to enter through the seemingly small and sometimes thought of as insignificant doorway of the eye or of the ear?
The darkness of this evil and corrupt world, the darkness of the enemy of our souls, and unfortunately, the darkness of demonic doctrines approved of and proclaimed by religious appearing men within the so-called church, has attempted to dispel the light of the truth of Christ’s warning of the end times. The darkness and deception of the pre-tribulation rapture combined with the once saved always saved falsely declared theory has successfully cast a spell of complacency on the majority of Christendom.
A Few Final Words:
But according to 2 Peter 2.9, as true believers believing the teachings of Jesus and as enduring to the end followers of Christ; “We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar [strange in the eyes of the world] people; that we should show forth the praises of Him who has called you [us] out of darkness into His [God’s] marvelous light.”
In other words, are we blending into the corrupt society that surrounds us? Are we becoming more like the world on a daily basis or more like Jesus? If chosen of God, are we desiring to live a godly life that is peculiar in the eyes of the world, or are we simply being made into the express image of the world and those of this world. We are to be in the world and yet not of this world!
John, writing in 1 John 1.5 revealed, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” And in verse 6-7 John also stated for the record, “If we [you and I] say we have fellowship with Him [God], and [we] walk in darkness, we lie, and do not know the truth [Jesus, who is full of truth]. But if we [you and I] walk in the light, as He [God] is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
According to Jesus, “No one can serve two Masters…” And we know that to be true! Many of us have tried miserably to serve two masters and have failed as Jesus warned. Many of us have attempted to walk in the light and in the darkness at the same time and those two paths do not end at the same destination. Therefore, we must ask ourselves if our life appears no different than those not attempting to live for Christ, and if so, it may be possible we are walking in the darkness.
The bottom line according to Jesus is, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.” Therefore, can we honestly admit that our lives are full of the light of the truth of God’s Word? And if not, we more than likely are walking in darkness and headed headlong into destruction and eternal torment. While we yet have the breath of life within us it is not too late to heed the warnings of Jesus!
Prayer:
Our Father in heaven, may our desire to hunger and thirst after Your righteousness close all doors to the darkness of the deception that surrounds us. In Him Always, Amen!
According to Jesus 