DONT BE DOUBLED MINDED

Many portions of the Bible explicitly speak of light. In Matthew 6:22 the Lord Jesus spoke on the light of the heart, saying, “The lamp of the body is the eye.” The Lord did not say that the eye is the light of the body. Rather, He said that the eye is the lamp of the body. Light relates to God, while the lamp relates to us. Light is in God’s word, whereas the lamp relates to us. The lamp is the place where light is retained. In other words, the lamp is the place where God deposits His light. It is also the place where we retain and release the light. In order for God’s word to shine in us, we must have a lamp within us.

This lamp is our eye. “If therefore your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark” (vv. 22-23). In order for our whole body to be full of light, the Lord specified one condition—our eye must be single.

What does it mean to have a single eye? Although we have two eyes, there is only one focus; they only see one thing at one time. Our eyes are sick if they have two foci and see two objects at one time; neither have a clear view. They are not single. In order for the eyes to see clearly, they must have only one point of focus; they cannot have two foci. In receiving the shining there is the matter of light, and there is also the matter of the seeing of the eyes. If we have never experienced any grace and mercy, we have never experienced any light upon us. But now that we have received grace and mercy, light is upon us.

The next problem is not with the light, but with our eye. If our eye is not single, we cannot perceive the light. Many people’s eye is not single; they see not just one thing but two things at the same time. Sometimes they see one thing as if it were two things. Light is not clear to them. In fact, they may be in total darkness.

The Lord said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (6:24). Many people do not have light because their eye is not single. The reason their eye is not single is that they are short of consecration before the Lord.

What is consecration? It is serving Jehovah alone. A man cannot serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other; he cannot serve both well. He cannot maintain such a balance. No one can serve the Lord on the one hand and serve mammon on the other hand. All those who try to serve two masters find out sooner or later that they love one and hate the other. We must either consecrate ourselves to the Lord absolutely, or we will serve mammon completely. The Lord said that the eye has to be single. This means that our service and our consecration must be single. Singleness of the eye signifies singleness of consecration