For goodness’ sake, be heavenly minded!

I don’t get people who say things like, “You’re too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good.” Correction, I do understand them. I just think they’re wrong.

Most of the time, I suspect there’s an impression that being heavenly minded means having your head in the clouds, daydreaming while letting the world burn around you. But that’s not it. Heavenly-mindedness is what helps us to pursue the common good here and now. Why? Because being heavenly minded means having your hope rooted in the right thing.

I love how Martyn Lloyd-Jones expressed this in Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. He said,

Unmixed joy, and glory, and holiness, and purity and wonder! That is what is awaiting us. That is your destiny and mine in Christ as certainly as we are alive at this moment. How foolish we are that we do not spend our time in thinking about that. Oh, how we cling to this unhappy, wretched world, and fail to think on these things and to meditate upon them. We are all going on to that, if we are Christians, to that amazing glory and purity and happiness and joy. `Rejoice, and be exceeding glad.’ And if people are unkind and cruel and spiteful, and if we are being persecuted, well then we must say to ourselves, Ah, unhappy people; they are doing this because they do not know Him, and they do not understand me. They are incidentally proving to me that I belong to Him, that I am going to be with Him and share in that joy with Him. Therefore, far from resenting it, and wanting to hit back, or being depressed by it, it makes me realize all the more what is awaiting me. I have a joy unspeakable and full of glory awaiting me. All this is but temporary and passing; it cannot affect that. I therefore must thank God for it, because, as Paul puts it, it `worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’.

The hope we have, this “unmixed joy, and glory, and holiness, and purity and wonder” that awaits us, is what we need more of in this world. When we are consumed with the cares of the world, we are distracted from doing what is truly good. We are not free to love others as fully as we ought when our hope is built on something less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. We cannot even truly enjoy the good things of the world because we put too much stock in them.

But it is heavenly-mindedness that changes that. We know where our source of hope and joy is, so we are free to enjoy what is good and to pursue the good of others. We’re not counting on them to satisfy us. We’re not looking to created things to make a name for ourselves. Heavenly-mindedness allows us to live as we were always meant to, and because of Christ in us, now can live.

I want more of that. I hope you do, too.

 


Photo: Pixabay

Posted by Aaron Armstrong

Aaron is the author of several books for adults and children, as well as multiple documentaries and Bible studies. His latest book, I'm a Christian—Now What?: A Guide to Your New Life with Christ is available now.