The Day of New Beginnings
Seeing in the Unseen Realm
Mat. 6:
19 ¶ "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
20 "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.
23 "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Verses 19-21 and verses 22-23 seem to be unrelated, but they are very much linked. These passages speak of focus and our capacity to spiritually see.
There are many realms of reality. In a sense, each individual lives in his or her specific reality. The importance of this truth is that one realm of reality covers up other realms. Jesus said in verse 22 that the eye is the lamp of the body. He said that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. He is speaking of our spiritual eyes here. We have a capacity within our spirits to “see” just as with the natural eyes. It’s through our spiritual eye that we perceive God’s world, the realm of spirit. Seeing and understanding spiritual truths come through our spiritual eye. We have spiritual perception to “see” beyond the natural realm because the eyes of our spirit are open to perceive that realm.
Now, Jesus said that if the eye is clear, we will be full of light. Light is what enables us to see, regardless of which realm we are moving in. The Greek word for clear is haplous. It means “single, sound, whole, of the eyes”. According to Strong’s, one synonym is: simple, literally, free from any
foreign admixture, unadulterated, free from disturbing elements. Are you beginning to see the connection with verses19-21? Jesus said to store up for ourselves treasure in heaven, not treasure on earth. In other words, our focus must be upon heavenly things, not earthly ones. He then said that where our treasure is, our heart would be also. What means most to us is what determines our reality. When Jesus said that if our eye is bad our whole body will be full of darkness, He meant if our focus in on a lesser realm we will be blind to the higher realities of the Kingdom of God. We will walk in darkness, i.e. without spiritual sight.
Let’s read now verses 24-34. They too are related to verses 19-23 rather than a new train of thought.
24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 ¶ "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
27 "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
28 "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
31 "Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
These passages of Scripture can be used to emphasize many different spiritual truths. But fundamentally they are linked to verses 22-23. Jesus is only on one train of thought in these passages. Their purpose is to teach us to move in spiritual sight. Verse 24 begins by telling us no one can serve two masters. Jesus makes a distinction between serving God and wealth. A better word is mammon, which comes from the Greek word mammoas. It means wealth or riches, personified. Personified denotes a realm of reality. Within that realm are worry, stress and anxiety. If we live in that realm and are subject to it, our spiritual eye will be “bad”. We will not see beyond the immediate needs we have. Worry, stress, etc. has a way of clouding our spiritual eyes and forcing us into a lesser realm of reality where the realities of God are hidden. It’s only as we are unencumbered by the lesser realm of “needs” that we are free to see in the higher realm of God’s world.
Jesus said in verse 27: "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” Everything in verses 24-34 is geared toward making us understand that to live in one realm we must relinquish our ties in the other one. When Jesus says you can’t serve both God and mammon, He is saying you can’t live in both realms. You are going to be devoted to one, and despise the other. You will love the one, and hate the other. This is true. When we are tied up in the realm of worry and stress over our immediate needs, we don’t want to be told to trust God. We want something concrete, not pie in the sky. So, either consciously or unconsciously, we despise and reject the higher realm of reality. The focus on self kills spiritual perception quicker than anything else.
When God desires to bring us into a higher realm of perception, of seeing that which is unseen, he doesn’t give us greater spiritual sight right away. The reason is expressed in Mat. 9:
16 "But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results.
17 "Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."
God is not going to bring us into anything that will ultimately hurt us rather than help us. There must always be the preparatory work done in us first to house that which He would impart to us. Thus, before we can see, we must first learn the basics of trusting God. To the degree we are able to live in the realm of Mat. 6:24-34, to the same degree our spiritual eye will be clear.