Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: September 11th

THE EVIL EYE

If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. - Matthew 6:23

The reference to the evil eye gives especial emphasis to the words in Galatians, "Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was set forth." For the evil eye, according to the old superstition, operated most powerfully on the persons who allowed their eyes to dwell upon it. If the Galatians had kept their gaze fixed on Jesus Christ, the tempter’s fatal glance would have had no power over them. The Galatian Christians, with characteristic Celtic fickleness, had fallen away from the apostolic doctrine, and had cooled in the fervour of their love to Himself. It looks, thinks Paul, as if some malignant sorcerer had affected them.

If we would escape the power of these evil eyes, we must so order our religious lives as to keep the facts of Christ’s work and death for us ever before our minds. We shall not be able to keep that vision of Christ crucified before our eyes in the midst of daily distractions unless it is stamped deep on mind and heart by the habit of quiet meditation. The absence of that habit is one chief reason for the weakness of so much of our modern Christianity. Meditation is almost a lost art amongst us. I wonder how many of us there are who, from one week’s end to another, ever spend ten minutes’ quiet thought upon the Cross, not so much for the purpose of investigation or confirmation or proof, but simply for the purpose of getting the sweetness of the thought more and more into our hearts, and the power of it more and more into our lives?

How often do you realise that great truth of Christ crucified for you? Do you ever think of it? Does the memory of Him and of His death for you come to you in your daily work and struggles?

I beseech you, fix your thoughts and your love on Him, and look away from all else. Make Him and His love and His death the theme of your thankful meditation in many a quiet hour of high communion. Try to have that vision as your companion everywhere, and on every common thing to see " placarded " the Crucified Christ. That sight will take the brightness out of many a false glitter, as a poor candle pales before the electric light, or as the sun puts even it to shame. It will make many a tempting fiend, who squats at your ear to drop his poison in, start up in his own shape. If you look to Jesus crucified for you, He will give you " power to tread upon the serpent and the scorpion, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." You may be as powerless of yourself before temptations as a humming-bird before a snake; but if you look fixedly to Him, neither the glittering eye of the serpent nor the forked tongue with its hiss will harm or frighten you. And the question of Paul, instead of being one of indignant rebuke and wonder, will become to each of us the expression of our triumphant confidence that we shall "tread upon the serpent and the adder," and conquer our tempters: "Who is he that will bewitch us, if before our eyes there ever shines Christ crucified? "