Heavenly Mindedness (16)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly - Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10; I want to come back to the quotation from the previous post by working through it with you. It’s been a while between posts, as some of you know I lost my brother Jim on Thanksgiving Day, and the days before and after have been difficult for me. Let me attempt to move forward by considering heavenly-mindedness, for Jim is indeed with Jesus. Vos’s words are in italics.

 

“In the heart of man time calls for eternity, earth for heaven. He must, if normal, seek the things above, as the flower’s face is attracted by the sun, and the water-courses are drawn to the ocean.” 

While this can look different in different people, we are born with a measure of hope, of light, of dreams, of aspiration – sadly, this is educated out of us, displaced by materialism, humanism, and other invaders of our souls. Often, when we do have transcendental moments, we are quickly brought back to “reality” by the pressures of life, including peer pressure. Even those among us who are amazed at the grandeur and beauty of nature are so indoctrinated that we dare not make the leap from nature to creation to Creator to the God who loves us. Nevertheless, we can trust Jesus Christ to take this desire that He has placed within us and to nurture it so that we seek Him and come to know Him, and begin moving beyond the earth into the heavens.

 

May I gently say that when we educate our children and young adults to make money, when our schools and universities are focused on preparing students to make money and achieve financial success, that we trade their souls for dollars, we feed students into the fires of Moloch, into the gods of this world. How much better to focus on character, ethics, service, morality, so that students may sense and develop an appreciation for what is good and true and beautiful. How much better to help students discover their vocational calling and to help them develop that calling, whether it is as a plumber, a physicist, a teacher, or a truck driver. Our consumer society is consuming its people – we are fodder for the monster.

 

“Heavenly-mindedness, so far from blunting or killing the natural desires, produces in the believer a finer organization, with more delicate sensibilities, larger capacities, a stronger pulse of life. It does not spell impoverishment, but enrichment of nature.”

Heavenly-minded people are people who care about other people, animals, and all of creation. Heavenly-minded people strive to live in a unity between heaven and earth, a unity in which the beauty of heaven enhances earth, and in which the beauty of earth speaks to us of heaven. Heavenly – minded men and women want heaven to be reflected in their work, whatever that work may be…and yes, in the light of heaven we can have joy and fulfillment in our vocations.

 

“The spirit of the entire Epistle shows this. The use of the words “city” and “country” is evidence of it. These are terms that stand for the accumulation, the efflorescence, the intensive enjoyment of values. Nor should we overlook the social note in the representation. A perfect communion in a perfect society is promised.” 

We are called as a people, from generation to generation. Our pilgrimage is a collective journey, and our destination is a City. A mystery is that while we journey to the City that we, at the same time, bring the City into manifestation on this earth. We journey to the City and the City comes to us. There are no hermits in heaven. There are no people living by themselves in heaven. There is no man or woman doing things his or her own way in heaven. The perfect communion in a perfect society that Vos writes about is perfecting it inhabitants in the here and now; in my life, in your life, in our lives as we learn to live together in Christ.  We need one another on this journey, I need you to be here for me, and I want to be here for you…and we are called to be here for others.

 

What does this look like in our lives?