The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

What do your eyes see?  When there is a lot going on in your family, community, and the world.  It is very easy to focus on what we can see with our human eyes.  When we do, that is when we start losing hope, becoming critical of ourselves or others, giving up and sometimes question our faith and leaving God’s protection.  In my personal study of Colossians 3:12-14, I have learned I can’t attain the spiritual clothes that Apostle Paul speaks of unless love they are held together or secure by love. “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14).  Most of us are familiar with John 3:16 and we often quote it.

 If God gave his only begotten son because he loves us which binds us in perfect unity with the Father-Son-Holy Spirit, how much more do we need the virtue of love in our lives. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).  I truly believe if we can see the spiritual war that is waging against our soul daily, our attitude toward each other and the world would be different.  Imagine you wake up in the morning, as you open your eyes, God allows you to see Satan’s demons and the Holy Spirit that are fighting for your soul.  I don’t know if you are aware, the devil has no authority over your life unless you invite his demons to use your vessel/body as his dwelling to carry his disobedience against God’s will for your life.  When Peter 1:5-8 reminds us to “Be alert and sober mind. Your enemy the devil Prowls around like roaring lion looking for someone to devour” this is a clear indication that the devil has no authority until he finds prey.  Let us not become Satan’s victim by recognizing that he is full of schemes. When we look at the people in our lives who have hurt or disappointed us and continue to do so, or the people in the world who seem heartless or evil, loving them by clothing ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience would be much easier if we could see that they are preys of Satan.  As I have shared in one of my devotions, the serpent was not Satan.  However, it has tendencies that Satan was able to use to deceive Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1).  In the same way, each human being has a choice to make.  Either allowing Satan to feed their soul or allow God’s Holy Spirit to feed it. There is a destination for each path (Matthew 7:13). The ability to see the Spiritual war that is waging around us is a gift. God, through the scriptures and in our own lives, has shown us the spiritual battle.  My question is, will we allow our eyes to see the light of God or the darkness that we are surrounded by in the physical world?  We are not each other’s enemy. However, the true enemy has a way of making us believe the people he is using to inflict darkness into our lives as well as others are the enemy.  As a result, we miss the warnings in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  Paul went further to explain in Ephesians chapter six how to fight against Satan's spiritual realms. If we are to succeed in binding ourselves in that perfect unity call love, we must see beyond the physical world into the spiritual realm and believe deep in our soul that the people we encounter are not our enemy. As we see and experience the physical world, we must learn to destroy Satan’s plan to distort the knowledge of God and take captive of our thoughts and make it obedient to Christ because our war is much bigger than each other or the world around us (2 Corinthians 10: 3-5).

Weekly Scripture Colossians 3:12-14 NIV