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

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more