Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Thursday, October 16th, 2025, and I am delighted to be with you today. It's Thursday, so y'all, that means that Sunday is just around the corner. Go ahead and start making plans. Get yourself in a Bible-believing church, but also, realize I'm recording this on Wednesday, so I really don't know how last night will have gone by the time this airs. I'm praying that it will have gone well. But two things, number one, I'm sure the food is gonna be excellent. I have no doubt about that. I'm sure when I record my next devotional, I'll be singing praises, that kind of thing. But number two, what I'm talking about, realize I'm recording this on Wednesday, so what I'm gonna be talking about tonight, which this will air tomorrow, it's gonna be some controversial stuff. Okay, there's there's no point in beating around the bush with it because I'm talking about the liberal versus the conservative church What are the hallmarks? What are the features? How do you know what? Which is what do you know to look for you that kind of thing and I realize that that's a controversial topic and that's also a very emotional topic because At Old Providence, we have a goodly amount of people that have left liberal churches for just that reason And I should rephrase that because almost all of them have made similar statements to me that we didn't leave them, they left us a long time ago, and they just couldn't sit there and listen to the Lord being mocked, et cetera, et cetera. But all of that being said, and I'm gonna talk about that a little bit tonight too, but if you were here, by the time this airs last night, Wednesday night, and you want to talk to me, by all means reach out. And to that end, if you are a regular here on Daily Devotionals, There are people that watch this, some of them I know, some of them I do not know. I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely couple's acquaintance yesterday, which will have been Tuesday by the time this airs, but loved getting to know them, and they watch the devotionals, and I really, really appreciated getting to know them. But nevertheless, and I know their situation, but some of you I don't know you. I don't know your situation. I know this thing goes all over the place, something like 40 states and 39 different countries or something like that. I don't know. Realize this, if you need help, if you are wondering about your church, if you don't know where to turn, get in touch with me. Write me on here. Okay, realize that if you write on here, it's going to go to the church's inbox and sometimes, but I try to monitor that regularly. But nevertheless, reach out and I'd love to speak with you. I'll give you my phone number. We can talk about it, that sort of thing. you need to get yourself in a Bible-believing church. Now, all of that being said, let's get to the business of the day. We're still making our way through the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5-7. Yesterday, we focused on verses 19-21, where Jesus talks about not storing up for yourselves treasure on earth. where moth and rust destroy, thief breaks in and steals, and all that kind of stuff, but instead to be focused on heaven. And today, there are those that make the mistake of thinking that Jesus is just absolutely shifting gears when he goes from verse 21 to 22. But it's actually a really good transition because verse 21 is what it all comes down to. I told you, several times, that Jesus is not just concerned with the outward stuff. It's not that the outward stuff isn't important. I heard this wonderful quote, and it was on an R.C. Sproul video, it's talking about Martin Luther, where Luther talked about, we are saved by faith alone, but not, or justified by faith alone. In other words, faith is what saves you, it's what justifies you, but it is not faith that is alone. It is through life that we live out our faith. And that is the faith that saves you. And no, doesn't mean that you work your way to heaven. It simply points to the genuine nature of your faith. You can say you got faith all day long, but if you got nothing to back it up, works wise, it is not saving faith. It's just as simple as that. And in the same way, y'all, when Jesus talks about the things that we do, the outward is important. But what Jesus really wants is your heart. Because here's the reality, you can fake the outward stuff. You can do the right thing for the absolute wrong reasons. You can do the right thing with an improper motivation. What Jesus wants is for you to do the right thing for the right reason. Not because you got to, but because you get to. Because, well, because you've given your heart to him. and he's the central motivating core of all that it is that you do, because you're following him, you see, and that's what he wants. And so our section yesterday culminated in Jesus saying, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In other words, those things that you focus on, those things that you invest in, those things that are really important to you, that's where your heart's going to be. And if your heart is not set on eternity, if your treasure is not based on heaven, if your treasure is not following Jesus Christ, well then, your heart's not going to be with him either. And so to that end, we continue today. Jesus doesn't switch gears. Instead, it's very much along the same lines that he continues today. And yes, it still has to do with money, as we'll see as the chapter wraps up. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's pray, and then we'll dig in. Our Father, would you please be with us now and guide us in this time. Help us to see exactly what you would have us to see. Help us to know, help us to understand. We want to be captive to your word. And captive sounds awful, but not in terms of drudgery. We want to be captive to your word because your word tells us what's best and good and right, and what brings peace and comfort and understanding. Oh, you love us so much, Father. Help us to love you with all of our hearts. We can't do this on our own. We need your Holy Spirit. In fact, we can't do it at all. We need your Holy Spirit to work within us, and especially as it relates to understanding your word now. So please guide us, and we pray it all in Christ's name, amen. All right, so Matthew chapter six, verse 21, we just read it. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And then it sounds like Jesus switches gears when he says, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? Maybe you're sitting here going, hmm, yeah, okay. What in the world is Jesus talking about here? But y'all, what he's talking about in a word is your focus. Another word could be your motivation. He's focusing on why you do what you do. And let me tell you the normal description of this, the normal interpretation of this passage. And it's not that there's anything wrong with using this passage to a certain extent for this, but I remember hearing a chapel service on this when I was a little kid. And this was when the Apple IIe was out. I think I was maybe in the third or fourth grade. I remember I broke my toe and it pops. You probably can't hear it. Hear that? Anyway, it's permanent and stupid human trick. My toe pops like crazy now because I broke it when I was in the fourth grade and I didn't have to go to recess. I got to stay in it. Normally, I love recess, but I got to stay in the classroom and play the Oregon Trail on the Apple 2e computer. Man, that was fantastic, but computers were wildly expensive. The PC was not really making its rounds yet. And I remember for Chapel, I went to a private school. And for Chapel, the speaker came and he talked about computer programming. And he used this metaphor for computer programming for the eye being the lamp of your body. And he said, what goes in through the eyes comes out in the actions. But as it relates to computer programming, garbage in, garbage out. If you're not programming, if you're not writing code correctly, if it's garbage code, you're going to get garbage performance. Your computer is not going to do what you want your computer to do. All right? And I think that's a very good metaphor. Most of us are not writing code, that kind of thing. But it's true. If you don't write the code correctly to make the computer work correctly, it ain't going to work. That's just all there is to it. And you can think of countless metaphors that go along with this. If you eat garbage, you're going to produce garbage. We could choose any number of metaphors or similes to describe this, but he reduced this passage to simply being about. Well you know, the little children song, be careful little eyes what you see, oh be careful little eyes what you see. And that is all true, and that's all good. But that's not what Jesus is getting at here, because he's not just talking about the things that you see with your eyes. What he's talking about, when he talks about the eye being the lamp of the body, what do you do with a lamp? You hold the lamp out. I've got this flashlight now, man alive, it's great, it's wonderful. So I haven't used a lantern in a long, long time. Listen, when you've had as many skunk problems as we've had, look, it only takes your dog getting sprayed once to want to be very careful, and Bo's gotten it twice, and now we've got Russer, and I don't even want to think about that puppy getting sprayed by a skunk. But, but, but, all of that being said, think about what you do with a lamp. You hold the lamp out in front of you, and the lamp determines whichever way that you need to go in your peering, and you hold the lamp out, Y'all, that's what he's talking about here in terms of our focus, in terms of our motivation. And y'all, when you separate out 22 and 23, it just sounds like it's talking about the things that you're looking at, but when you combine it with verse 21, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What Jesus is really talking about is why you do what you do. And what he said is very true, that if your eyes are good, the whole body will be full of light. In other words, if you're focusing on the things that you ought to be focusing on, if your heart is where your heart ought to be, which means trained on his word, which means focused on what God would have you do, because remember, God wants what's best for you. He loves you. That's why his word tells us to do what it tells us to do. So if your eyes are focused on what they ought to be focused on, then your whole body's going to be full of light, but in the same breath. Verse 23, but if your eyes are bad. In other words, if you're not focusing on those things that you ought to be focusing on, your whole body will be full of darkness. And see, that brings me to a trick that we play on ourselves. We think that we can compartmentalize our lives. And to a certain extent, our lives are compartmentalized. You know that. We have things that we do, where we put on a different hat for this and a different hat for that. The problem is when people do that with spirituality. when people do that with Christianity, where they say, oh, you know, I can live like hell all week, and then, oh, wait a minute, it's Sunday, I'm gonna put on my Christian hat, and I'm gonna go sit down in a pew, and I'm gonna sing, and I'm gonna praise God. Do you think God hears your praises if you live like hell all week? You think if you live like hell all week, you're not gonna go there when you die? Remember what Luther said, we are justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone. It's not about what you know in your noggin, it's about what you live out. It's about your focus, it's about your determination. It's about where your eyes are trained. You know, not too long from this point, Peter and Jesus have their little episode where Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus while he's walking on water and he starts to sink. The reality is it's the same way with you and me. If your eyes are bad, this isn't a commentary on how great your vision is. My vision is pretty much the only thing that works well on me, but this isn't about that. This is about what you're really focused on. And so Jesus concludes that thought with, if then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? What's he talking about there? I believe what Jesus is really getting at there is if you have focused so long on the wrong things that you believe those wrong things are the right things, or It doesn't necessarily have to be the wrong things. It can be if your focus is on something other than Christ, if Christ takes a backseat to other things that you've got going on, if you find fulfillment, joy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and all these other things out there, but your focus is not Jesus, then the end result is that the darkness is gonna start looking like light. But how dark is that darkness? That's what Jesus says. Now, what does this have to do with treasures in heaven? This is all one thought. And so Jesus concludes by saying, no one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. What Jesus does here is he puts his finger on the pulse of the average human being that most of the time When people are not focused on Him, they're focused on wickedness, they're focused on money, or they're focused on, yes, both. And Jesus just makes it very clear, in terms of your focus, in terms of your determination, in terms of why you do what you do, either you will be sold out for Jesus, or you'll be sold out to something else. You're gonna be a slave. You know, this is the nature that we have. Jonathan Edward, not the psychic, not the failed presidential candidate, Jonathan Edward Puritan Ryder, he's considered the greatest American philosopher that has ever lived. And he was a pastor. And he did a lot of work on the human will, and he talked about how our human will, we don't have the power of contrary choice. Or like, okay, option A, B, or C. I'm just gonna, let's see, I'm gonna weigh it, I'm gonna do, fill in the blank. We lost that. And we lost that, I believe, in the Garden of Eden, when our will was corrupted. And so now, though we have freedom, we follow our strongest urge. That is how we are. And so Jesus changes the urge, but our focus is to be Him, so that our strongest urge is to do that which is pleasing to Him, so that our strongest urge is to love Him, because we know that He loves us. That's what Jesus wants. And most often, what gets in the way of that is instead of doing what he starts with, instead of not storing up for yourself treasures on earth, but instead storing up for yourself treasures in heaven, we pay attention to the treasure here, the treasure now. And so he brings things back around to you can't serve both God and money. Realize he's not saying that money is bad. Realize he's not saying that you can't be a person of wealth and still be a follower of Christ. That's not what he's saying. In fact, y'all, in terms of that, that's a very poor and simplistic understanding of God's word when you say rich people can't be saved. And by the way, even that term, rich people, if you're watching this, compared to most of the world, you're probably pretty rich. And I'm not saying I understand your circumstances, all that kind of stuff. If you can go to your sink and turn the tap and drink what comes out of it, You're rich. If you've got electricity and a roof over your head, you're rich, okay? Especially compared to what's going on around the world. Go to Myanmar, go to Zaire, go to some of these places, okay? You're rich. But the idea that you can't be rich and go to heaven, that's not what Jesus is saying here. What he's saying here is pay attention to your focus. And so the devotional thought for today is just that. What's your focus? Why do you do what you do? Have you compartmentalized Christianity? Is Christianity something you do just like church is something you go to? Or is Christianity what you are? Or is the church who you are? If not, then you're probably serving something else. And chances are it may be money or it may be pleasure. It doesn't really matter. You know, it's fascinating. You know, the number one thing Jesus talked about Number one thing he taught about the kingdom of God, more than anything else in his preaching and teaching, kingdom of God. Number two, hell. You can't talk about the kingdom of God and Jesus can't talk about faith in himself and eternal reward if you're not gonna talk about the alternative, which is hell. Number three is money. And not because money is the root of all evil, it's the love of money that is the root of all evil. I'm so sick and tired of that quote out there about churches. If the Bible says money is the root of all evil, then why do churches ask for it? No, the Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil, and the church doesn't ask for your money. This isn't about the church, whichever church you happen to go to. This is about God's calling for you to be a joyous giver, a cheerful giver. It's about obedience to God. In 23 years of ministry, I've never preached a sermon on tithing, okay? Should you? Yes, but not because I tell you, not because Old Providence needs it, and we do, because there are ministry costs, and we're trying to have a witness in this world, and by God's grace, we are, but y'all, it's not about just Old Providence. This is about what God has called you to do. You know, the idea of you giving 10% to God may seem unbelievable, but what about the idea that 100% of what you have comes from Him anyway? But again, this is not about tithing. This is about why you do what you do. Make sure you are focused on Jesus, the light of the world, and you'll be filled with light. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this time that you've given to us, and we pray that you would work in our hearts and minds that our focus would be you. Forgive us when it is not. And so often with me, it is not. And Father, I am so grateful for your grace. I need it every day, all of us do. So please empower us and guide us by your Holy Spirit. And we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back together tomorrow at 6 a.m. You don't have to be here at 6 a.m., it's here all day. Nevertheless, thanks so much, take care.