The Secret of the Single Eye
There are in the victorious Christian not only the desires of the body but the desires of the soul. For may we not say that the sin of “the lust of the eye” is a sin of the “soulish” part of a man’s nature? It concerns his desire to acquire the things that he sees. To the natural man these things are riches to be obtained for himself. “He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches” (Proverbs 28:22). The wise man here connects covetousness and “the evil eye.” Let us hear the words of the Master of wise men: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:19-24).
Here is the clear choice. The desire to get the riches we see may become the lust of the eye, covetousness, the servant of mammon. But the Christian abiding in Christ has a “single eye,” that is, he has but one passion, to lay up treasure in heaven. He has not a doubtful mind as to whether he may grasp after this or that. He has but a single question, as his eye is single, and that is how may he glorify God in his getting? He makes use indeed of the mammon of unrighteousness, but not for self’s sake,—for the sake of Another.