And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.
The above verses come out of the middle of the story of Abraham and his nephew, Lot. God had enabled both of them to grow exceedingly. But, as Solomon tells us in his book of Ecclesiastes, with riches comes strife. A contention rose between Abraham’s servants and Lot’s servants. (That is when you know you have a good life, when you have enough servants that they are fighting with another’s servants.) Abraham proposes that Lot take a look around and choose where he and his family, flocks and servants might want to live and Abraham will take what is left. That is the setting for the above words. We see that Lot lifted his “eyes” and choose Sodom and Gomorrah. This was good place, but we read later it was a wicked place. So, we see that Lot was not spiritually driven in his choices, but material and physically driven. His heart choose what his heart wanted. Notice what Jesus tells us about this type of life:
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:22-23 (ESV)
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Lot’s “eyes” were full of desire, so that directed the decisions of his heart. Later Abraham would rescue Lot because of the struggles with Sodom and Gomorrah’s leadership (chapter 14). We will read even later that God will rescue Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah, due to His destruction of it, because of their sin. Lot is making a foolish choice in the above verses. He was guided by his heart and not by the Word of God. If we want to avoid these types of decisions, we have to defend the entrances of how they get into our hearts. Again, note what Jesus said about defending the entrances where sin tries to creep in. Jesus demands radical defense of those areas that can cause us to make sinful choices:
Matthew 5:29-30 (ESV)
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
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