Doctrine of Division • Matthew 6:22–23 In verse 22, our Lord is using the eye as the symbol of conscience in a person who has been put right by the Holy Spirit. A single eye is essential to correct understanding. One idea runs all through our Lord’s teaching—right with God, first, second, and third. If we are born again of the Holy Spirit, we do

It is a trial of faith all through. The conflict for the Christian is not a conflict with sin, but a conflict over the natural life being turned into the spiritual life. The natural life is not sinful—the disposition that rules the natural life is sinful. When God alters that disposition, we have to turn the natural life into the spiritual by a

“But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven”—that is, have your banking account in heaven, not on earth. Lay up your confidence in God, not in your common sense. It is the trial of your faith that makes you wealthy (see 1 Peter 1:7), and it works in this way: every time you venture out on the life of faith, you will come across something in your

The Holy Spirit teaches us to fasten our thinking upon God. Then when we come to deal with property and money and everything to do with the matters of earth, He reminds us that our real treasure is in heaven. Every effort to persuade myself that my treasure is in heaven is a sure sign that it is not. When my motive has been put right, it will put

In these verses in Matthew 6, our Lord deals with the mind and tells us how we are to think and to reason about things. Unless we learn to think in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s teaching, we will drift in our spiritual experience without any thinking at all. The confusion arises when we try to think and to reason things out without the Spirit of

Jesus essentially says, “Pray because you have a Father, not because it calms you, and give Him time to answer.” If the life of Jesus is formed in me by regeneration and I am drawing my breath in the fear of the Lord, the Son of God will press ahead of my common sense and change my attitude to things.

Religious groups may produce a passion for souls; the Holy Spirit produces a passion for Christ. The great, dominating passion all through the New Testament is for our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we pray we give God a chance to work in the unconscious realm of the lives of those for whom we pray.

Briefly summed up, these verses mean this: Have no other motive in giving than to please God. In modern philanthropy we are egged on with other motives—“It will do them good.” “They need the help.” “They deserve it.” Jesus Christ never brings out those aspects in His teaching; He allows no other motive in giving than to please God. In Matthew 5,