Light or darkness?

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.  Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.  Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.  If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.” - Luke 11:33-36

The eye represents the way you look at things and the way you interpret them.

"And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire." (Matthew 18:9)

If your doctrine, or principles, or conclusions through which you look at everyone and everything around you is not healthy then you're not walking in light but in darkness. If you use God's word as an excuse to mistreat others, to tear them down because they are not 'of sound doctrine', because they eat or don't eat a certain way, because they observe or don't observe a certain celebration or ritual, you're not walking in Light.  If you have reached an understanding that a certain thing should be observed in a certain way, then good for you! Keep it and be true to it, but the moment your limited understanding of unlimited things becomes the standard to which you hold everybody else accountable, you've lost your love and I suggest you do everything in your power to get it back.

The way Yeshua looked at everyone and everything around him was through love and grace. He treated a blind beggar the same as he treated Nicodemus (a member of the Sanhedrin). He showed the same mercy to an adulterous woman as he did to Lazarus whom he loved. He showed the same kindness to a pagan roman soldier as he did to Jairus who was a ruler of the synagogue in Capernaum.
If you have decided to walk in grace then walk in grace regardless of the person to whom you must give grace. The same with love, the same with mercy. 

You might have the most correct doctrine and the best songs to praise God with, the best rituals and the best understanding of things, but if you have no love, then it's all for nothing!

Soren Kierkegaard said that the outward rituals and doctrine and whatever one says that they believe don't make one belong to the kingdom of God anymore than waving a flag around makes you part of a nation.

Now waving a flag has its place and so do all the rituals and doctrine, but if waving a flag is the standard by which you judge one worthy or not, then the way you look at things is quite corrupt.
If you have reached the understanding that waving a flag is an essential part of a believer's life then wave your flag my friend. No, don't just wave it! Kiss it every morning when you wake up and again before you go to bed, touch it with all the reverence in the world! If it's your outward manifestation of whatever you have inside, then good for you! But hold yourself and only yourself accountable to that standard.

I am Romanian. I don't live in Romania. I do not have a Romanian flag and even if I would have one I doubt I'd ever wave it. If a "better" Romanian, has a Romanian flag blowing in the wind outside his house and sings the national anthem every day and declares to anyone who listens that he is a proud Romanian, that doesn't make him more Romanian than I am.

The way of God is not easy. We sacrifice a lot to walk it. It would be such a shame to find ourselves resisting God because we reduced His love and grace to rituals and ideas. It would be such a shame to think we're walking in light and our light would turn out to be darkness!
Just something to think on...

Bat Melech בת מלך

 Cristina כריסטינה