Power of His Resurrection

Head in the Clouds

“He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good!”

This familiar phrase entered the cultural lexicon somewhere near the mid 1800’s without any one person claiming responsibility for it. As the pendulum of history swung from philosophy and arts in the renaissance to mathematics and practicality in the industrial era, you were simply not very useful if your head was always in the clouds.

It became a popular saying because it rings true. The person who fails to arrive at work because he was studying the best ways to do the job doesn’t exactly bring home a paycheck. Preoccupation with a good thing at the expense of a necessary thing is pseudo-wisdom and is easily seen through, especially by wives. No one in your household will be impressed with your latest study of Galatians if the kitchen sink is leaking and the furnace won’t turn on.

While a vein of truth runs through it, this isn’t exactly a Holy Spirit inspired press release hot off King Solomon’s desk. Could there even be a trap to this kind of thinking? We’ve seen the pendulum continue to swing away from any kind of heavenly mindset in the modern era and the results have been gravely disappointing.

What would happen if nobody ever thought about heaven or the next life? What if the Bible was silent concerning the resurrection of the dead? We’ve done the experiment and the results are in. Today, American christianity would be hardly recognizable to those that built this nation many years ago. Sin abounds, Christians are distracted by the world, and the Kingdom of God is a “nice-to-have” once you have gotten everything else.

I asked a man once what he thought happened after death. His reply was simply that “the lights just go out, and that’s it.” If that were true, the only rational response would be to maximize our own pleasure and happiness at the expense of everyone and everything else around us. Without the accountability of reward and punishment for our deeds on earth, there should be no other guide to our behavior except that which is right in our own eyes. See the book of Judges for the expected outcome.

In this essay, I would like to make the exact opposite argument. To be effective on earth, you must have your mind fixed on heaven. This is not a reflexive statement intending to push the pendulum back the other way, but rather an argument that sprouts from the examples of men like Abraham, Paul, and Jesus to name a few. The very word of God prescribes a kingdom mindset to the Christian who would make an impact during his brief moments on earth.