Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:8 (TPT)

Whatsoever Things – Thinking High Series – Part 3

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6  |  PART 7

Colossians 3:2 (Fix your mind on things above) always leads me to Philippians 4:8 (above). Think about good things. Pure things. Beautiful things. I used to treat my mind like a TV channel and set it to receive only good, pure and beautiful things. But I found it to be an impossible task. And not just because I am a frail human given to sins and temptations (let's be real, folks), but because alongside the good in the world, there is so much bad. So much darkness. So much terror.

I found that if I wanted to block out negativity, I had to block it altogether. No bad news. No reports on the horror that people go through and the conditions some have to live in. I didn’t know what to do with the darkness. My own and that of others. I didn’t know how to entertain it, or where to let it sit in my mind. So, I allowed myself to be ignorant. Perhaps, in the beginning, I was ignorant of ignorance. Happy to sit with only the fluffy and the lovely, the calm and the sunny. I didn’t want to wrestle out questions or fears or doubts or terrors, because, they are things of earth, not things from above, right? But I couldn't ignore my ignorance for very long. Soon enough, the darkness creeps in on us all. And we have to decide how we are going to engage it. Ignorance doesn’t help anybody.

What are heavenly things?

When Jesus mentions the word “heaven” in his Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew's account, he used the word “Ouran.” It means an “elevated place, the seat of order of things eternal and consummately perfect, the place where God dwells.” It's not a place that is out there somewhere separate from here. It’s the place where God dwells, the grip that holds all things together and gives all its order. In fact, the word ‘heaven’ is not mentioned at ALL in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). It’s not something that the Jews saw as the end goal of life. Be a good person, keep the law, and then you’ll get to heaven. Keeping the law was all about valuing the life that they had and the life of others; making this moment, here and now, as full and as pure and as helpful and as holy as possible. Jesus is not our golden ticket to heaven, our get-out-of-hell-free card. He is the WAY to meaningful and holy living, right here, right now. And beyond that? Well, that's a mystery I’ll enjoy discovering.

To set your mind on things above is to place God at the center of all you are, and do. “Earthly” thoughts are not thoughts about earth and the things that pertain to it. It’s living with the idea that we are seperate from God and from each other.

Richard Rohr says. “If I want to maintain an image of myself as innocent, superior, or righteous, I can only do so at the cost of truth. I would have to reject the mysterious side, the shadow side, the broken side, the unconscious side of almost everything. We have for too long confused holiness with innocence, whereas holiness is actually mistakes overcome and transformed, not necessarily mistakes avoided… Letting go means that the denied, repressed, rejected parts of myself are seen for what they are. You see it and you hand it over to God. You hand it over to history. You refuse to let the negative story line that you’ve wrapped yourself around define your life.”

Over to you! Leave a comment below.

Go to Part 4 – With Christ »

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