Jesus said that the eye was the lamp of the body. If your eye is good your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be filled with darkness. And, if the light within you is darkness, how terribly dark that darkness (see Matthew 6:23).
What I see comes from the outside world. How I see, comes from me. Facts, (according to the book Crucial Conversations) are neutral. It is the story I tell myself about the facts that creates meaning to me. I then believe that the story I have created from myself is true and project that meaning onto the facts.
What if I see evil in other people? If I condemn someone else, I have condemned myself first. Because, when I see the facts of what someone is doing, I look back when I did the same or similar things, condemn what I did, judge myself and then project that condemnation and judgement on the other person (see Matthew chapter 7).
What if my eye is good? To the pure all things are pure (see Titus 1:15). When my eyes are good, I see evil as satan’s influence on someone who was created by and is loved by God. I condemn the evil, not the person. My struggle is not against flesh and blood (see Ephesians 6:12). My struggle is against satan and his influence. (Thank God, Jesus has already won our victory through His offering of Himself to God as our condemned substitute (see 1 Corinthians 15:17 ).
What if the light within me is darkness? If I condemn what is actually good as being evil, then I close the door of my mind to the possibility of ever understanding good. And I won’t know what is good until I say, as Jesus stated, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!” (see Matthew 23:39) That is, until I welcome Jesus as the definition and the standard of the goodness of God, as God in the flesh.
I AM for You! 