The Lamp of the Body
By M.T. Clark — P-2106 | 10/28/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast
Today’s Message on YouTube:
Today’s photo of a mountain of a tree stripped nearly bare, with its branches reaching into a brilliant blue sky laced with wispy clouds, comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this view on a lunch break walk up Wards Lane, in Menands, NY, on October 17, 2026.
Well, it’s Wednesday, and I share this photo of what I call “a mountain of a tree” to visually represent our arrival to another midweek summit, so Happy Hump Day, and to remind us that even though seasons of change may strip away what we once held on to, we can still stand tall when we are rooted in Christ.
This is often how the Lord teaches us something about Himself. He strips a tree down to its branches in October so that we can see the sky through it, which we couldn’t see too well when it was full of leaves. In the same way, God takes something away from us for a season so that we can see Him more clearly.
So, when the Lord is causing something to fall away from your life for a season, lift your eyes to the sky and remember Who is still there. Regardless of the losses or changes in your life, God has not left you. The things that matter will come back in time, and whatever God is doing in your life while you wait is work He could not do any other way. So don’t focus on what you have lost. Instead, remember that you are rooted in Christ and can always look to the heavens and praise the One who helps you to stand no matter how the winds of change may blow. Speaking of what we see when we look up…
Our series “The Beatitudes” continues today with the next place Jesus takes us in the Sermon on the Mount. After the question of where our treasure is, Jesus turns to the question of what our eyes are letting in.
The Lamp of the Body
Jesus moves from the question of what we are storing up to the question of what we are letting in. In Matthew 6:22-23 (NKJV), Jesus tells us: “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
The eye in Jesus’s teaching is the opening through which light enters a person. In the ancient world, the eye was thought of as a lamp. It was not that the eye gave off its own light, but that it was the opening through which light reached the inside of a person. Whatever a person looks at steadily is going to shape what is on the inside. Jesus uses this common picture and applies it to the spiritual life. The whole body, meaning the whole person, is either full of light or full of darkness, and the deciding factor is what the eye has been fixed on.
The Greek word Jesus uses for “good” here is “haplous,” which means single, simple, or undivided. A good eye is an undivided eye set steadily on one thing. The word Jesus uses for “bad” is “poneros,” which carries the sense of evil or corruption. A bad eye is one that has been drawn to the wrong things, and once the wrong things are focused on long enough, the inside of the person is filled with darkness. Jesus closes the teaching with a hard warning. If the light that is in us is actually darkness, how great is that darkness! A person who thinks they are walking in light, when their eye has actually been feeding them darkness, is in a very bad place spiritually.
This teaching hasn’t gotten any easier in our day. The eye is still the lamp. What our eye focuses on is still what shapes the inside of us. The only difference between us and Jesus’s first-century listeners is that we have more things fighting for our eyes than anyone has ever had, and most of them are designed to grab us and hold us. Our screens show us whatever will keep us scrolling. Our social media feeds show us whatever will keep us watching. The videos, posts, and images we consume are shaping us into either light or darkness, whether we realize it or not.
So, what does guarding our eyes actually look like?
It means being honest about what we are letting in. We consider what we are watching and how it makes us feel. If the honest answer is that we are feeding our eyes a steady diet of lust, anger, envy, or shallow noise, we need to realize that we are being influenced by darkness.
Jesus is calling us to put the dark things down and fix our eyes on things that will fill us with His light. The best starting place is the Word of God and prayerful time with the Lord Jesus Himself.
So how should this change the way we live? For most of us, it means changing what we have been feeding our eyes with. We may need to delete an app, put a filter on a device, or replace the habit of scrolling with a habit of reading Scripture, praying, or walking outside and looking up at the sky. When we set our heart, minds, and eyes on that which is good, pure, and holy, the light will shine into our lives. Over time, with the Holy Spirit’s help, our inner life will brighten, our walk with the Lord will get steadier, and we will begin to see more of Him in the places where He has been working all along.
Every step we take toward the Lord is a step in the right direction. So, keep on walking and talking with God.
— M.T.
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
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