22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
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The eyes are the window of the soul. But how in the world does something about eyes get thrown into the discussion on money? How does that fit? The biggest clue comes in Mt 20:15. A landowner hired someone in the morning and agreed to pay a day’s wages to the man. Then he hired someone else a little later. Then another in the afternoon. And then another in the evening. The first man hired worked all day. The last man hired worked an hour. At the end of the day the landowner gave them all the same wage, the equivalent of a day’s wages. Fair or unfair?
There is only one right response. “WOW! Is that the most generous landowner or what?!”
Would that be your response? I don’t think it would be mine. I’m pretty sure that I would probably be joining the grumblers and thinking to myself, “that’s unfair!”
In 20:15 in the NIV it says: “…are you envious because I am generous?'”
The literal translation reads: “…are your eyes bad because I am good?”
How you see something changes everything. Especially when it comes to money.
So when Jesus says your eyes are important when it comes to money, what do you see? Do you see generosity? Or do you see unfairness. Do you see heaven? Or do you see earth. Do you celebrate a brother or sister who got a miracle? Or do you dwell on the miracle that you didn’t get.
Once again we see that comparison is the death of our joy. But amazement at the ways of God? To marvel when there’s no benefit for us? This is heaven indeed.
