The Lens.

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a musty cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have! You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both. If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” -Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬-34

What lens are we looking at this life through? Jesus tells us here to stop worrying and to hold the things of this world with open hands, but He also teaches us that “our eyes are windows into our bodies. If we open our eyes wide in wonder and belief, our body fills up with light. If we live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, our body is a musty cellar. If we pull the blinds on our windows, what a dark life we will have.

If we close our eyes to the light, if we start living squinty-eyed - no longer believing in our God but instead, afraid of the world, believing the world, distrusting everyone and everything, worrying our days away, giving value to enmity… what a dark life we will have. But! When we walk this earth in the light of His Love and Promise (That He is All and All, and He is All we need), when we walk in this Surety, our eyes are open and our body fills with light… His Light. His Love. And we become free to stop clinging to what will not last. Alive in wonder. Complete in Him. Trusting that “He will help us deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”

We are free to walk in the Light. This is Good News. He gave His life so that we can see through the lens of Light and know Life Eternal. Amen.