Matthew 6 can be summed up by the phrase, “One Eye on Jesus, One Eye on the World.”  One clue of how I believe this phrase came to mind was in the very first verse of the chapter, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.” (Matthew 6:1)  A second, “as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others,” a third “on the street corners to be seen by others,”  and finally a fourth “for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting.”  

Many of our actions that we do in life are to be seen by others, to be honored by others, to be heard by others, to show our righteousness before others.  I am guilty of this, I admit it, I don’t think I intentionally do most of what I do in church to be seen by others, but it is always kind of somewhere in the back of my subconscious so it seems.  They might call that part of your flesh, or you might say that its obviously somewhere still inside of you.  We care about what others think of us and rightfully so.  However, this passage is obviously talking about the part of our natural or sinful nature that needs to be realigned with the nature of Christ.  I just want to say that it is very humbling having those thoughts in your subconscious, it is a gift from God because of this one very reason because it reminds us of who we need to look to, as we notice that we really do have One Eye on the World, and One Eye on Jesus.  It is like having a lazy eye that wants to do his own thing but your other eye is trained to always look straight forward, but that other one, GOSH darn-it, it just seems to have a mind of its own.  This is our hearts, this is our lives, we are called to have two eyes on Jesus because if we did, we wouldn’t care what others think about us, we wouldn’t do things to be seen by others, we would truly store our treasures in Heaven which I think is the main point of this chapter.

The Sermon of the Mount describes the perfect Christian man, he needs to strive to have both eyes on Jesus.  If our heart was with God, and our heart looking to Heaven, our eyes will be pure, our eyes will be full of light and not full of darkness.  Our bodies, our expressions, our faces will radiate life, we will be full of joy.  We won’t worry about the things we need to do every day, we won’t worry about the future, we will be simply content to enjoy the day as it is called Today for we would truly believe at that moment that God gave us everything we need, and see the responsibilities he has given us as his trust in us to lovingly and wholeheartedly go complete those tasks.  I think this is what life looks like “to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.”  Every day I wish and pray that my wandering left eye will be a little more like the right eye that is steadfastly gazing upon the Lord.