Biblical Success - Finishing Well Part 3 - Running In The LightНамуна

#1 - Lookin’ Good?

Matthew 6:22,23 - “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 the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”

John 3:19 - “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

I John 1:5 - “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

II Corinthians 11::14 - “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.”

Luke 11:34-36 - “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

In scripture the contrast is repeatedly drawn between “darkness” and “light.” Darkness, representing the evil of the realm of Satanic activity or operation and Light, as the Kingdom of God and His Way and Truth. (Jesus is called the Light of the world.) Our scripture focus for this study are the passages found first in Matthew and then also in Luke that refer to our “eye” and the possibility of our “eye” being deceived to believe that darkness is light. 

Our physical eye is an organ of perceiving and receiving. Our eyes don’t create, they respond. And so it is with our belief systems. No one is born with an intact belief system. Our system is evolved over time as we interact with the world around us and in us, and in that whirl is both darkness and light. We become what we pay attention to. We choose with our will, we store up what we believe to be light in our mind and that becomes our light. But what if what we believe to be light is actually darkness? It must be possible that we can be deceived. HINT - The devil is called The Deceiver.

In this study we are going to offer several examples of what many accept as light and critique them through the lens of scripture. I’ll toss you a softball. Let’s start with this for today; “There are many ways to God.” This statement is accepted by an increasing percentage of people who self-identify as Christ followers. Darkness? Light? what do you think and why?