Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

Daily Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek

9 October 2024

Reading From Matthew 5-7

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” —Matthew 6:22-23

When I was a young student, I was told by my teachers that I needed to learn how to do math in my head because, “when you grow up you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket.” By the time I reached adulthood, cell phones and very soon smart phones began to proliferate and become ubiquitous. When I was a child, we never would have dreamed that a computer more powerful than any we had access to at the time would one day actually fit in our pockets. What is more, that computer would also be a telephone, camera, calendar, bank, and so much more.

Technology can be used for good, but it can also be used to create and spread horrible wickedness. The window to the world we carry around with us can help us expand our knowledge of beautiful concepts and allow us to participate in worthwhile endeavors, but it can also enable us to indulge our most sinful desires and expose us to untold trauma.

Even many followers of Jesus today practice very little or no selectiveness when it comes to what they allow their eyes to see and ears to hear. We need to be reminded of our Good Shepherd’s wisdom found here in His Sermon on the Mount. Both light and darkness come through our senses and we need to protect our spiritual health by preventing darkness from coming into our lives.

For some this selectiveness means that we choose not to read certain books or watch certain television shows or movies that are overly salacious or gratuitously violent. Much of these decisions depend on factors such as the spiritual maturity of the individual, what weaknesses of the flesh he or she struggles with or is prone to, and the knowledge that what we feed will grow and what we starve will die. We should desire that our hunger and thirst for righteousness would increase and that our sinful desires would shrink.

“Heavenly Father, bless Your children with the strength, fortitude and courage we need to say no to sin and yes to You. Lead us to the realization that You and Your Way is better than anything this sinful world has to offer. Guide our conversations and choices of entertainment. Help us to honor You in all that we say and do. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.”

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. —James 1:27