Matthew 6:19-24

We do things according to how we see them. We see things in the wrong light and we act incorrectly, if our spiritual eye is sick. Yet if it is sound and healthy, we will both see and understand things correctly and do them correctly.

If we see Christ indescribably great and glorious, we will love Him with everything that is in us; we will cling to Him and keep to His Word with all of our heart.

The above cannot be separated from despising mammon with all our heart. Money, and everything you can buy for money, as well as all the glory of the world, loses its power of attraction. It does not interest us anymore except that we are thankful for our “daily bread” as it is stated in what is called the “Lord’s Prayer.”

“No one can serve two masters . . . . You cannot serve God and mammon” simultaneously.

Jesus views this matter so seriously that He firmly declares: If I love the things of this world, it is the same as hating or despising Him.

Almost everyone protests against that. They maintain that they really love Jesus Christ, in spite of the fact that they are keenly interested in the things of this world; they even love them dearly!

However, they are sadly mistaken. They deceive themselves because their eye is sick! They think they can see that there is something great and desirable in all the things they can get for money.

The apostle Paul had received healthy eyes, and his eyesight was amazingly clear. Listen to what he saw: With his healthy eyes he saw as loss what people usually consider gain; he even considered everything in this world as loss. He saw Jesus as so excellent and so glorious that he himself renounced everything, or gave up everything; he relinquished, desisted from, denied himself everything. (French tr.) He saw it as it was: all dung when compared to Christ and the heavenly things. Phil. 3:7-8. In other words, this is the proper evaluation of all the world’s glory. If you love it, you will thereby despise Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory!

Put an abrupt end to this foolishness!