Skip to main content

Be More Heavenly Minded, You'll Do More Earthly Good


Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (I Peter 2:11-12)

            Romans accused early Christians of cannibalism, but apparently noticed how much Christians loved one another and that the Christians were willing to die for their beliefs. When plagues ravaged Europe and north Africa, Christians nursed sick and dying pagans, knowing that they might also die as a result. One of the things I love about history is that once you get past the nonsense of names, dates, and place you had to memorize for school tests, history is filled with stories of people and ideas.  If you scratch below the surface of those stories, you often find Christianity at the heart of much of the best and brightest, not only in Europe, but found in higher frequency in "the West." Want a sample of this? Read How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, or any book you can find by Rodney Stark. Pick up his book, America's Blessings to get an idea of contemporary society. 
           I've been told more than once that I am "too heavenly minded to be any earthly good." It's not a true description of me, but it provided the justification the speaker needed to continue being worldly-minded. Shouldn't those who are the most heavenly minded be those who do the most earthly good? Oh, those around us may not say it now, but when they stand before God, our behavior should take away their excuse of ignorance. We should be the most loving, most informed, most charitable, most  responsive and responsible, most educated, most civically involved, law-abiding (so long as civil law does not violate God's law) people in the country. 
            We have work to do. Christians permitted others to take over medicine, science, education, charity and the family. We allowed them to take over much more than those, but those four, it seems to me, are the areas in which we most need to focus our attention. For some of these, it takes one or more degrees to have an influence, but you can work on yourself and your family now. You can do charitable work now. You can get involved in your schools and school boards now. You can start being a better neighbor now. You can begin today, if you have children, to prepare them to take a Christian perspective into their careers. The problem with all of these things is that they take focus, they take attention, they take close encounters with oppressive ideologies. They take not abandoning the field of battle when those ideologies claim the victory before the fight has even begun.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more