Marching Orders #34... "Motes Get in Our Eyes"

LET THE

SONSHINE

..."Your eyes light up your inward being.

A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul."

Luke 11:34a

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Motes Get in Our Eyes..

Something in your eye can sure hurt...

"Well son, what did you learn in Sunday School today?" a concerned father asks. "Well...we learned that our teacher has across-eyed bear... and nobody...I mean NOBODY knows it!" was the boy's reply. "Son, are you sure about that?" questioned the now curious father. "Oh, yeah dad, that's all she talked about during the entire class. She kept saying, 'Nobody knows the cross-eyed bear.'" the boy replied. The next time the father saw the teacher he inquired about her cross-eyed bear, only to learn that she had said, "Nobody knows the cross I bear!" Sometimes it is not so much what we have said or done, but how it has been perceived that really matters. Many of us have made the same mistake this teacher was making. Her own problems were at the forefront of her life...that was all she thought about, all she talked about, all she lived...all the time.

I believe the Lord has given me some insight from some verses found in Matthew 7:3-5. We traditionally refer to this account as the.."don't judge your brother's small sin when there is larger sin in your own life"...and I don't want to distract from that truth... but, I'd like to share a broader insight that these verses trigger in me.

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in they brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?...Or how wilt thou say to they brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?...Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of they brother's eye." Matt. 7:3-5 KJV.

The modern translations refer to the mote as a speck or splinter and the beam as a board, plank or log. The smaller being in the other person's eye that we are attempting to help, but unable to, because with the huge object in our own eye it is impossible to see the speck in our brother's eye.

I'd like to show you something that Lord revealed to me. Take your index finger and lay it across the bridge of your nose, going across both eyes...keep your eyes open. What do you see? Mostly index finger, right? Now, take the same finger and hold it out as far as your arm will reach...Now what do you see? You see an index finger, a hand, an arm...In addition,I can see two lamps, a mirror, two telephones, some Bibles, papers, a computer, some files, etc., as well as my index finger. In effect, what did we just do? By putting the index finger right in front of both eyes, we took what is just a small part of our body and turned it into what seemed like ALL OF OUR BEING. We turned a speck into a beam, didn't we?...and how did we do that...by focusing on it only; by placing it in front of everything else. Do you see what I am getting at here?

I believe that there is something more for us to understand. When our own concerns become our main or only concern, there is no possible way we can fully focus on someone else's need. We all have these motes, those specks in our eyes. How we react to them determines how large they become... and we can say this about sin as well... When we dwell on a small sin, constantly keeping it before us, rather than repenting of it and receiving forgiveness immediately, it can become enlarged in our minds and consume our thought life. Small needs or lacks in our own lives, when they become focused upon constantly, will rob us of the servanthood that God wants us to share with the Body of Christ.

In First Corinthians 13:11 Paul writes...

"...When I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I became a man my thoughts grew far beyond those of my childhood, and now I have put away the childish things."

When you think of a small child that has just started to talk, what do they say? Isn't it, "MY doggie." "I want!" "ME go bye-bye!" A child is primarily concerned with their own wants and needs...not other's. When our own wants, desires and needs are what we are focusing on, aren't we also being childish? Isn't it time for us to grow up and take the splinter that has grown into a board out of our own eye, so we can focus on other's needs? And, think of the misery that we are causing ourselves with worry and frustration over the trivial small things in our lives...things that God has an answer for if we would just allow Him to reach down and remove them from us.

When our eyes are focused on heaven and things to come, the motes in our eyes take their proper place; we see them like God sees them, something that will soon be washed away by the tears Christ shed for us on Calvary. The devil wants no more than to get our attention on the problems and cares of this world, and off of caring for others like Christ cares for us.

In Him and He in me,

Marlene \o/

MARCHING ORDERS #34

The Marching Orders are compiled from verses out of the Living Bible. No commentary is added...they are the paraphrased Word of God.

(King James version available upon request.)

"As Christ's soldier do not let yourself become tied up in worldly affairs, for then you cannot satisfy the one who enlisted you in his army." II Timothy 2:4 L/B

Let heaven fill your thoughts; don’t spend your time worrying about things down here. Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; for all these worldly things, these evil desires: the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance: these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever.

Don’t store up treasures here on earth where they can erode away or may be stolen. Store them in heaven where they will never lose their value, and are safe from thieves. If your profits are in heaven your heart will be there too.

We know these things are true by believing, not by seeing.

We never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our inner strength in the Lord is growing every day. These troubles and sufferings of ours are, after all, quite small and won’t last very long. Yet this short time of distress will result in God’s richest blessing upon us forever and ever! So we do not look at what we can see right now, the troubles all around us, but we look forward to the joys in heaven which we have not yet seen. The troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.

And God has reserved for his children the priceless gift of eternal life; it is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

(Living Bible:)

Colossians 3:2.

I John 2:15-17.

Matthew 6:19-21.

II Cor. 5:7. - II Cor. 4:16-18. - I Pet. 1:4.

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