"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"

Here's what I need you to know...you can be looking right at Jesus and still be completely blind.

In the first century, when Jesus said "if your eye is bad," everyone listening immediately understood what He meant. They called it an "evil eye," and it wasn't some spooky curse. It was an idiom for stinginess and envy. It described someone who looked at God's generosity with suspicion instead of gratitude. Someone who saw what others received and felt cheated instead of blessed.

Think about how a lamp works. It doesn't just illuminate what's outside of you. It reveals what's inside the room. Jesus is saying your eye, your vision, your perspective is the lamp that lights up your whole inner world. If your vision is healthy, if you see God and His generosity clearly, then your whole life is full of light. But if your vision is distorted by envy, by comparison, by a stingy spirit that measures and calculates and keeps score, then everything inside you becomes darkness.

And here's the terrifying part: Jesus asks, "If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" In other words, when the very thing meant to illuminate you is corrupted, you don't just live in a little bit of darkness. You live in crushing, overwhelming, suffocating darkness. And the worst part? You don't even know it because the thing that's supposed to show you the darkness is the very thing that's broken.

A healthy eye was called a "single-minded eye" in ancient times. It meant your vision was set on one thing...things above. Colossians 3:1-2 tells us to seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated. But an evil eye, a bad eye, is double-minded. It's trying to look at heaven while keeping one eye on earth. It's trying to trust God's generosity while calculating whether you're getting your fair share.

So can I just ask you something? What is your eye fixed on right now?
Are you looking at God's incredible mercy toward you, or are you looking at what He gave someone else?
Are you grateful for what you have, or are you bitter about what you don't have?
Because whatever you're looking at is determining whether you walk in light or stumble in darkness.

Tomorrow, we'll uncover the dangerous gap between the grace we profess and the works we practice, and why that gap leaves us exhausted and empty.

Write down three specific blessings God has given you that you've taken for granted. Then thank God for His generosity without asking Him for anything else.