“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:22-24 KJV,https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.6.22-24.KJV
A Gift Worth Receiving
After Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for almost four decades, the religious Jews were angry with Him. This may seem strange, because healing is a good thing, but Jesus performed this miracle on the Sabbath—the day of rest. In the Old Testament, God gave believers a long list of rules to follow in order to stay right with Him, and these rules included honoring the Sabbath.
But in the New Testament, Jesus was sent to change our relationship with the Father. By sacrificing Himself on the cross, He gave us access to a relationship with God—so that long list of rules was no longer needed. Throughout Jesus' life, He shows people the nature of this new relationship. But because it didn’t line up with what the religious establishment believed, they were angry with Him.
In John 5, Jesus justifies these changes through revealing His true authority. By calling God His Father, He shared that He was equal to God. This angered the religious Jews, but it gives us a ...