Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God

How are we made back into the image and likeness of God? To answer that question I must first examine; how did the devil become our father? And how did we fall from being in the image and likeness of God?

We fell with our eyes!

The devil said, "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).

So Eve turns from God and to believing the lie of the devil and the bible records; "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate" (Genesis 3:6).

She saw, then it was a delight to the eyes and it was desirable. Then what happened; "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). It was with the eyes that man fell away from God and began chasing after the things of this world.

Look throughout history, "Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan" (Genesis 13:10). Lot ended up in Sodom because his eyes led him there. David ended up in bed with Bathsheba because, "he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance" (2 Samuel 11:2). During the time of the judges; "there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6 & 21:25).

Our eyes seem to search out evil, but the eyes of God are much different. Habakkuk wrote; "Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor" (Habakkuk 1:13). The eyes of God approve righteousness and not evil. "The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may support those whose heart is completely His" (2 Chronicles 16:9).

Jesus taught us; "If you eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the fiery hell" (Matthew 18:9). Jesus taught us that the eye is the window of our soul. He said, "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, 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 the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and dispise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:22-24).

When your whole body is full of darkness, it is deep darkness. Peter wrote that some were "having eyes full of adultery and that never cease from sin" (2 Peter 2:14). John wrote; "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world" (1 John 2:15-16).

Our eyes betray us. They lead us to the place of sin. Jesus even told the lukewarm church of Laodicea with "eye salve, anoint your eyes, that you may see" (Revelation 3:18).

I love how the writer of Hebrews put it; "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1-2).

The eyes did betray God in the garden but God provided us with a window back into His presence, next time I will talk about this important organ.

Grace and Peace, from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ!