“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Mat 5:27-29, NASB)

Opening up our spiritual sight is one of the keys of the Kingdom. It is such a powerful tool of the Spirit that it is one of the main gateways of attack by the enemy of our souls. Last chapter we spoke about imagination and how the Tempter tries to corrupt our imagination. We looked at Yeshua in the desert and saw an example of the war of imagination.

You can tell how important something or someone is to the plan of God by the nature of the attack against them. The realm of seeing by the eyes of the Spirit is so important in exposing both the plans of darkness and also to encourage the warriors of light that the Enemy is always working to corrupt our spiritual sight.

One way is through lust. In Matthew 5:27-29 Yeshua warns about lust and its impact on how we see. He said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Mat 5:27-29, NASB)

Let’s break this down a bit. First the context is adultery. He starts with the Torah, the Law. Then knowing the real heart issue, lust he declares that lust is the same as adultery in the heart. I think He is pointing out that adultery lives in the heart before it is acted upon.

Then He tells us that it would be better for us to lose our sight than to be thrown into hell because of what is in our heart and how it impacts our sight.

There’s a lot of conversations about when looking becomes lust but I think it is actually the other way around, lust becomes looking. I think lust is in the heart first and then we go looking to satisfy the craving.

Lust is a boundary issue. It is the opposite of meekness. Meekness is the quality of heart that respects and honors boundaries. Yeshua tells us: “Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.” (Mat 5:5, NKJV).

Our inheritance, our destiny is available to us as we learn meekness. The ancient Hebrew word translated as “meek” is the word “anav”. As we break this down to it’s roots I think we can gain some insight into lust and our eyes. 

The Root word picture is:

The Eye

The Hebrew word for meek/humble is anah and we write it like this: (Remember you read right to left.)

ענה

Ayin (ע) is the first letter in the word anah, but in the early Hebrew language it looked like an eye:

So, the word anah has to do with our eyes and careful watching. In this case, it has to do both with where we place our eyes (on God, not ourselves), but also what we are watching.

What are we to watch?

Our heart.

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” (Pro 4:23, NASB)

Why do we need to watch over our heart? What does the Bible refer to when it speaks of the heart?

In ancient Hebrew thought, the heart (Hebrew: lev or levav, לֵב) represents the core center of human existence. Unlike the modern Western separation of intellect and emotion, the ancient Hebrew heart is the control center of life where thinking, deciding, feeling, and desiring all take place.

1. The Seat of the Mind

Ancient Hebrews did not have a specific concept or word for the brain. Therefore, the heart was considered the origin of all intellectual activity—where a person thinks, reasons, learns, and understands the world.

When the Bible says to "love God with all your heart" (e.g., Deuteronomy 6:5), it primarily means to commit your mind, thoughts, and reasoning to Him.

2. The Command Center of Choices

In Hebrew, the heart is where your will resides. It is the spring from which decisions, intentions, and moral actions flow.

One translation of Proverbs 4:23 advises: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

3. The Place of Desires and Feelings

While it is the hub of rationality, the heart is deeply emotional as well. It is where a person experiences deep joy, courage, fear, grief, and desire.

It is viewed as the "hidden self" that only God truly sees and examines.

“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, To give to each person according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.” (Jer 17:10, NASB)

4. The Pictographic Meaning

When looking at the ancient Hebrew pictographs for the word lev—spelled with the letters Lamed (ל) and Bet(ב)—a profound spiritual meaning emerges:

Lamed (ל): Depicts a shepherd's staff, representing authority and guidance.

Bet (ב): Depicts the floor plan of a tent, representing the inside or dwelling place of a family.

Together, the pictographs represent the heart as "the authority within.”

This is why we surrender our heart in covenant love. The words, “not my will…” are an expression of a heart that is ready for love. We see this most beautifully in the final prayer of Yeshua in the garden of His death, Gethsename. As He faces the bitterness of betrayal and the act of intercession of the cross, He cries out:

“saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”” (Luk 22:42, NASB)

This is the root and power of the new covenant! This is the secret of eternal life! Eternal life is pure love, it is pure surrender of our will to the greater love.

The only trustworthy heart is a surrendered heart in love. The opposite is the lustful heart which is really a heart that is trying to get its needs met by its own devices.

Returning now to the eyes of the heart. The heart sees based on whether it is surrendered in love or trying to control through lust. John, the Apostle of love, who Yeshua identified that way, said:

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.” (1Jn 2:15-17, NASB)

Decoding this, we can say that an unsurrendered heart is a desperately sick heart that will look at life through selfishness, lusting the flesh, lusting with the eyes, and trying boastfully to puff ourselves up in pride. This is the world’s approach to a life apart from God’s surrendered love.

The key is surrender. In surrender we have to trust which makes us vulnerable to hurt. It isn’t that we might get hurt if we surrender our heart, it is that we will get hurt when we surrender our heart at least in this world. The only safe place for true surrender is to God. This surrender is the great exchange of love that brings us into eternal life!

Once we surrender our heart and begin to trust, what the bible calls faith, we then are in a spiritual position to see the unseen realities of the Kingdom of God. Yeshua calls this love surrendered state a state of a pure heart.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Mat 5:8, NASB)

We can watch over our heart but to purify it we need to surrender our heart into love.

The eyes of Love. In the bible the eyes of love are called favor. In Hebrew the term is “motseh Chen beh enayim”. Literally it is translated as finding favor in the eyes of another. We see this phrase with respect to Noah.

“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” (Gen 6:8, NAS95). This is a love statement. The next verse tells us this reality:

“These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” (Gen 6:9, NAS95)

Walking with God refers back to the garden. It is the condition of oneness. God found in Noah a man after His own heart which opened up the eyes of trust and love.

Love is the holiness of God manifested. This is called being “one”. The waters of the Spirit of life flow to awaken us in our internal being. Love is the fire that ignites our lamps. It is the light that brings forth the understanding and opens the eyes of the Spirit! The light that love produces radiates through the conscience seeing others with grace and favor just like God saw us!

Activation: Seeing with a surrendered heart. “Give me your heart, my son, And let your eyes delight in my ways.” (Pro 23:26, NASB)

A simple prayer like, “Lord, I give you my heart this day. Lead me. Use me. Help me to trust you more than myself,” sets your heart in the right posture.