HERE’S A QUESTION for you. Honestly speaking, do you sometimes feel that you’re spending too much time on your computer or phone scrolling through websites? I suspect many of us do. Of course, we may start with the best or simplest of intentions. We just need one piece of information. We just need to buy one item. We just need to send one email.

But as soon as we open our web browser, we’re inundated with what’s now known as clickbait. Our screen fills with intriguing little thumbnail images and headlines — often sensationalistic or exaggerated — designed to capture our attention or curiosity and lure us into clicking a link. If we actually stopped to think about what we were seeing, we might say to ourselves, Oh, come on, there’s no such thing as a guaranteed way to lose 10 pounds in a week. But that’s just the thing: clickbait is designed to get you to click without thinking, or at least, without thinking carefully.

And every time you click a link, you get even more links to click. Pop-up ads reminding you of something you viewed on another site, but didn’t buy. Maybe you want to buy it now? No problem, just click here. The endless, repetitive ads you have to scroll past just to read the article you linked to from your news feed. Want to get rid of the ads? Easy. Just click here to subscribe at our low introductory rate!

In fact, you don’t even have to open your browser. Just pick up your phone, and you’re likely to see push notifications telling you what you missed: emails, news, special offers. Click, click, click. You may even forget why you picked up your phone in the first place.

We now live in what scholars call an attention economy. Companies, websites, and marketers aren’t just vying for your money, they’re vying for your attention. And like money, attention is a limited resource; we only have so much of it to give at one time. Thus, to gain influence and market share, people pay money to buy attention — or as some marketers might say, “eyeballs.”

So why do we spend so much time clicking and scrolling? Let me put it bluntly. It’s not just because we have wants and needs, interests and desires. It’s because somebody wants to influence us and has paid someone else to design ads and apps that capture and hold our attention. They use AI and machine algorithms to track our viewing habits and learn our preferences, then serve up content that someone like us is most likely to click.

In short, we’re being manipulated. But that in itself is nothing new. What is new is that we carry devices with us that give manipulators access to our eyeballs anywhere we go, at any time of day.

I don’t know that anyone in Jesus’ day could have imagined the electronic world we live in now. But Jesus knew a thing or two about the importance of attention.

JESUS HAS JUST spoken about earthly versus heavenly treasure. Our priorities in life should be directed toward the latter, he teaches, toward the kind of treasure that is secure. But what qualifies as “treasure”? The key phrase is this: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). Our treasure, in other words, is whatever we set our hearts on. It could be something material, for which we might pay money. Or it could be something immaterial, like a goal that claims our time and energy, a dream toward which we work.

Note that Jesus doesn’t say, “Forget about anything that might be considered earthly treasure, or the Father will have nothing to do with you.” Rather, he’s giving a word of wisdom for anyone who truly wants the kingdom of heaven: If you want the things of heaven, don’t underestimate the captivating allure of the things of earth.

Again, like money, time, or energy, our attention should be understood as a limited resource. How will we spend it? I believe that’s the gist of what Jesus says next:

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:22-23)

This is not, of course, Jesus’ first reference to eyes in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, eyes are mentioned a full twelve times, in a variety of ways. Earlier in the sermon, for example, Jesus taught:

If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. (Matt 5:29)

Here, Jesus uses the eye to teach a lesson about lust and covetousness. Those who would be righteous in the kingdom sense must remember that it matters what we look at, and how we look at it.

In chapter 6, then, Jesus extends the metaphor. The eye may seem like such a small thing compared to the rest of the body, but its role is a crucial one. It’s not literally a lamp, but without it, we wouldn’t be able to see — and it’s by the gift of sight that the whole body finds its way in the world.

As the New International Version suggests, you can’t see properly if your eye isn’t “healthy.” But Matthew’s Greek is tricky to translate. The word translated as “healthy” is only used twice in the New Testament, once here and once in the parallel version of the sermon in Luke. It doesn’t typically refer to physical health, but to something more like simplicity or moral clarity.

Similarly, elsewhere in the New Testament, the word rendered here as “unhealthy” is usually translated as “evil” instead. The “health” of your eye, in other words, is a metaphor for moral health — again, suggesting that it matters what we look at and how. Taking this together with what Jesus has already said, we can ask ourselves whether we set our hearts and fix our eyes on what is evil, or what is good; on what is earthly, or what is heavenly; on what is temporal, or what is eternal. It makes for the difference between a life that is characterized by moral darkness versus one that is filled with light.

I DON’T MEAN to paint some dire scenario of evil geniuses bent on world domination, cackling maniacally as they use our cellphones to melt our brains or turn us into zombies. Nor am I suggesting that God will punish us for clicking the wrong links.

But if it’s important to ask ourselves where our heart is, it’s also important to ask where we fix our eyes.

Your attention is valuable; be thoughtful about what you do with it. Remember that almost everything you see when you open your web browser represents someone who wants your attention for their own purposes, which may not be the same as yours. You can just go with the flow and let others direct your electronic path, or you can decide where to direct your eyes and attention.

Choose light, not darkness.