People say Christians are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good. While this sadly may be the case for some Christians, it ought not be so. Rather, it is the reverse. Christians are to be so heavenly minded they are actually of earthly good.
Christians have a dual-citizenship. While they have a citizenship in this world, they also have one in Heaven. The Apostle Paul says, “our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20).” If you visit a foreign land, you will notice certain customs peculiar to that land. If you visit India and see the way they do certain things, you might shrug your shoulders and say, “Beats me. They’re Indians.” If someone from a foreign country visits the United States and sees the way we do certain things, they might shrug their shoulders and say, “Beats me. They’re Americans.” Similarly, when people meet a believer in Christ and observe certain proclivities toward goodness, kindness, gentleness, love, and self-sacrifice, they should wonder, shrug their shoulders, and say, “Beats me. They’re Christians.”
The Apostle Paul said to the Colossian Christians, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:1-2) The phrase “things above” stands-in for the heavenly abode of God and all things related to it. It means we do not seek to live according to the sinful ways of the world, but according to the ways of Heaven. It means we seek to live according to the teachings of Christ and the revelation of God’s Word, thus bringing heavenly things down to earth.
C.S. Lewis said, “[Hope] does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth you will get neither.”
How might your heavenly orientation in Christ change how you live today?