day no. 13,981: your lamp

The Bible interprets itself. The more you read all of it, the more you understand all of it. Too many complain that they don't get how it all fits together, but in fairness they consume the Bible as a finicky child in a buffet line, catering each bite to their specific taste, instead of ordering the house special and trusting the house to have considered what goes best together.

 

I delighted to make these connections this morning after I read:

 

Proverbs 21:4

Haughty eyes and a proud heart,

the lamp of the wicked, are sin.

 

The lamp of the wicked's feet, the way they see the world and make decisions and interpret events, are selfish eyes and a prideful heart. Because they consider themselves first in all things and because their hearts lead their heads, they are constantly led into, enjoying, regretting, enslaved to, pursuing, being pursued by SIN.

 

Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

 

The lamp of the righteous' feet and the light that illuminates their path is God's Word. The Bible is the guide and they see the world and interpret it through what they have learned and believed and are struggling to believe in the Bible.

 

Matthew 6:22-23

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 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!

 

How you see the world affects everything! If you see the world rightly as God has instructed us to see it, you find light and deeper, more insightful instruction on how to navigate the narrow path that leads to the Celestial City. If you see the world wrongly as your crooked heart paints crooked lines, you find darkness and stumbling and groping about on a wide path where no rails guide you in any particular direction. You find only room to wander blindly and what could be more desperate than being blind, in the dark, with no walls or rails to direct you anywhere ever?!?!

 

Matthew 20:15

Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?

 

God is free to do what He wants. That is one of the perks of being God in addition to being one of the foundational character qualities of His very essence. The only God who is, the only real, true God is a generous God who desires to give people what they do not deserve in order to reward them for things He has done. This makes the self-made man envious because God's generosity doesn't compensate his accomplishments in proportion to what he believes he deserves.  He sees the world as his oyster and Heaven as his wages. He sees the present world wrongly and it has devastating, eternal consequences.