Some years ago, I had a friend who seemed perfectly healthy. And one day he went to the doctor because he had a headache and the doctor said to him, "You have a tumour in your brain the size of an egg.” And he was told he had only a few months to live. It was amazing to see how all his priorities change overnight. It was amazing to see how his attitude toward all his possessions change overnight. He had a whole new perspective on everything—the way he talks, the way he thinks, the way he behaves. Everything he did was focused on one thing and one thing only: preparing to meet his Lord.
What does a heavenly minded person look like? One type of person that springs to my mind is a monk. secluded from society, as far from worldly distractions as possible, free to exercise their mind in contemplating spiritual realities, away from the desk job, the patients, the clients, the colleagues. sounds blissful, doesn’t it? Well, not exactly.
Welcome to today’s episode, the next in an ongoing series on the epistle to the Philippians, with Pastor Paul Cheng. Today he defines the opposing terms, heavenly minded and earthly minded, for us. In particular, He lists a few things a heavenly-minded person constantly considers. Its interesting to note that today’s text was not written by a monk.
No, this was one of the busiest, hands-full, the-care of-all-the-churches-resting-upon-his-shoulders type of person — the Apostle Paul. His track record suggests quite the opposite of a reclusive lifestyle. Just a few verses before today’s text, the Apostle highlighted the relentless mindset he carried with him into each new day. Today he takes these ideas of a spiritual mindset further, growing our vocabulary, so that we can find out if we’re what the apostle considers heavenly minded, or earthly minded. Here’s Pastor Paul to help us.
The end of the year is fast approaching. Perhaps you have plans to go on holiday, either overseas, or interstate, or even within your own backyard. However you spend your next break, i’m sure you’re eagerly anticipating it. I’m sure you can picture the change of scenery, change of routine, maybe even change of mood that you expect to experience in that upcoming place or time. You’ve done your research, you’ve discussed it with more eagerness than anything else with your friends and family. The bottom line is you are more than ready for that time to come now.
Isn’t it a shame then, when we place so much emphasis, so much hype and anticipation for these things, and so little thought or even any at all, on the best place we will one day find ourselves in, the manifest presence of God, meeting our Saviour face to face. Are we excited over such a time?
It won’t be a short stay where our accomodation is prepared by distant relatives, whose house we’re curteously cautious of, and whose cooking we’re politely weary of. No, it will be the eternal resting place of all of God’s children, prepared by none other than our Lord Himself. If that doesn’t get us excited, while tickets to disneyland does, is there a problem? Instead, as we heard today, we thank God that our citizenship, is, already, in Heaven. We thank God detailed hope of our rapture or resurrection, and for the body that we will inherit when that time comes.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode with Pastor Paul. I’m your host, Joshua Nah, and in the next episode in this series, Pastor will recap what we’ve learnt so far, in order to help us defensively ‘stand fast’ in our Christian faith, as it says in Philippians 4:1 - that’s in two weeks time, here on ‘Tried and True’.