Heavenly Minded
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3: 1-4).
When I was a much younger woman, I sometimes heard Christians accused of being “so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.” This accusation came from a cynical view that Christianity is a pie-in-the-sky religion that causes people to be so focused on a (likely non-existent) heavenly future that they didn’t care about “real world” problems.
Versions of this accusation still get levelled today, even by professing Christians, toward Christians who don’t believe that political activism is Christ’s great commission for his church in this world. But to reject political maneuvering as the means for changing lives is not the same as not caring about this world’s problems. Rather, those of us who have been rescued by Christ understand, in a way no one else can, that no life will ever be changed in any lasting way unless it is transformed by Christ.
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Co 4:6).
Those of us who’ve seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus, have come to love him and everything heavenly about him. Having been saved by Christ, the last thing we want to do is return to the blindness of our former darkness (see 2 Co. 4:4). We want to be done forever with what is earthly in us so that we can better reflect God’s glory to this dark and dying world.
So what do we do next? How do we bring about earthly good with our heavenly minds? Do we go on the campaign trail? Do we become soldiers in the culture wars? Do we rail against sinners—mocking, intimidating, guilting, shaming, or coercing them? Rather Let’s go back to Colossians and look at what the apostle Paul sees as the first logical step for people whose minds are set on “the things that are above.”
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col 3:5-10).
Stop thinking about that dark world out there for a moment. Are you putting away your earthly things? Are you actively removing malice, anger, slander, wrath, lies, and the like from your heart, your relationships, your conversations, your texts, your emails, your television screens, and your social media feeds? If not, it’s time to reset your mind on things above, on the glorious character of Christ seated at the right hand of God. Remember it was the grace of God that saved you while you were still God’s enemy. Remember it was God’s kindness that led you to repentance.
Now take a moment to imagine what it would be like if the the whole world likewise fixed its mind on Christ and put away (as you are doing) passion, evil desire, covetousness, malice, or lies, and the rest. What would become of rape, murder, theft, abortion, corruption, addiction, adultery, domestic abuse, racism, violence, and war? No earthly means, no system of laws ever known to humanity, not even the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament, have the power to accomplish what your imagination just witnessed, the removal of wickedness from the human heart. Rather, “the law came in to increase the trespass” (Rom 5:20). It “imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal 3:22). In other words, the inability of law, even God’s law, to change humanity’s sinful nature points intentionally to the need for Christ.
Only what is heavenly—only the grace of God revealed to us in Christ—has the power to transform the human heart. Only a mind set on Christ, seated at the right hand of God is willing and able to don heaven’s robes right here, right now on earth, which is exactly what Paul says is the next step in our mission:
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Col 3:12-17).
Have you ever wondered why the writers of the New Testament epistles spent so much ink preaching the gospel to people who are already Christians or why holy living and Christian character matters so much? It’s because we are called to live as Christ’s body on this earth. This means we should look like him, act like him, talk like him, representing his perfectly heavenly character in everything we do in this world. This is not legalism. This is love, the out-working of our adoration of everything that is beautiful and heavenly in him.
As we obsess ourselves with the loveliness of his gracious character, “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). This is the transformative work of the Holy Spirit producing Christ’s heavenly character traits in us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” things against which there is no law (Gal 5:22-23) and which no law could ever produce. Only the Gospel could do this in our lives, and only the gospel can do it in anyone else’s. Only a heavenly-minded, gospel-shaped people can do any real and lasting earthly good. So, set your mind on Christ above.
