Good morning, dear people.
I definitely need to re-train my little fingers to type “20” rather than “19” when entering the year.
The composition below has been extracted and edited from my folder of 8 years ago. I’m noticing that inspiration from 8 years ago is just about identical to that which is experienced this morning.
My morning plan may not include my typical old man jog with Tazzy. Instead, I think I’ll be running off in my truck fairly early to carry on with a sawmill job about 10 miles away. But if you haven’t seen Tazzy before, I’ll stick on a photo. One of his passions is to fetch, and he prefers two balls over just one. He can easily carry two in his mouth.
May the treasure of your relationship with the Most High be your strength. Ray.
I believe that Jesus is giving us a general recipe for doing life with joy and optimism. The alternative is a recipe for depression. Let’s look again at verses 22 and 23. “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!”
Here’s my spin: Your worldview and God-view perspectives determine the quality of your life. If you are able to recognize with your internal eyes the greatness, goodness, majesty, and grace of the awesome God of the Bible, then every other part of your life in this world will be positively influenced and invigorated by that view. But if your perspective sees no order, no design, or no purpose, the result can only be self-centeredness, confusion, and meaninglessness, which, I think, is an appropriate way to define depression.
Does it require any difficult or complicated reasoning to figure out which approach is superior? I don’t think so!
I realize I may be overly repetitious, but I don’t want to sign off before directing attention to verse 33 of chapter 6 once again, which I believe is the bottom-line key to this “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7). Indeed it is key to doing life. That’s why I refer to it often. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” In other words, we are to establish our relationship with God along with all its benefits as our primary objective and most valued treasure. Jesus already set forth the logical basis for this mandate: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21 NIV).