SCRIPTURE
The lamp that guides the wicked--haughty eyes and an arrogant heart--is sin. (Proverbs 21:4)
OBSERVATION
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said the eye is the lamp of the body (Mt. 6:22). If the eye is good, the body is full of light. If the eye is bad, the body is full of darkness. Then he said, "If the light is darkness how deep is the darkness?" He was not talking about the 186,000 miles per second kind of light. That light cannot be darkness because darkness is the absence of light and in Jesus teaching he was talking about the presence of a kind of light that was in reality darkness...whew. Light then is a metaphor for the knowledge we receive that guides our lives. The information we allow into our brains (we see or read with our eyes). Here, the writer of Proverbs uses lamp as a form of light. He further illustrates this lamp that guides the wicked in the wrong direction as haughty eyes and an arrogant heart. The lamp of prideful living.
APPLICATION
I have to carefully choose my guiding light, those influences that lead my life and establish my path. Pride says I will go my way, but submission says I will go God's way. How do I know which way that is? Psalm 119:105 reminds me that God's word is a light unto my path and a lamp unto my feet. I'm always using a lamp of one form or another to find my way through life (advice from friends, books, media, popular culture, etc.). I need to choose God's word to make sure I end up where God wants me. It is more than enlightenment, it is about obedience. I can know God's word but I must submit to God's word and allow it to shape my life. What prevents me from doing that? The very things the writer of Proverbs mentions...haughty eyes and an arrogant heart, pride - which is sin, because it stifles my life of listening to God and doing what he wants.
PRAYER
Lord, may your word be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
