By Marlon De Blasio, Christian Post. (Image: Jack Sharp/Unsplash)
In Christian grace, spiritual mindedness usually depicts believers who are seeking a deeper experience with God. Spiritual mindedness is also perceived amusingly as “too heavenly minded with no earthly good.” Nevertheless, Scripture teaches that “to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). So it’s helpful to know if there is anything notable about pursuing spiritual mindedness in the scriptural sense.
Here are 3 traits that I believe identify with what it means to be spiritually minded, though there are certainly more.
1. The Lord’s forgiveness is a living reality
Foundational to Christian faith is personally knowing the reality of forgiveness by God’s grace. It’s where it all begins. Jesus emphasized how genuine repentance and its experience of grace will make an indelible impact in a believer’s life. He said of the repentant woman who washed His feet with her tears: “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven — for she loved much” (Luke 7:44-47). She began to “love much” as demonstrated by washing His feet with her tears, because she experienced the removal of guilt by Jesus Himself. The reality of the Lord’s forgiveness by the indelible experience of grace is powerful for those who will “love much.”
Forgiveness also makes the spiritually minded wise about how grace should be extended to others. I was moved recently by the story of a Christian lady and how she defined forgiveness: “But forgiveness itself — a determined posture of the heart to choose love and refuse bitterness — is always possible, and it benefits me even more than the person who wronged me.” This is spiritual mindedness as known by those whom the grace of God has significantly impacted. Altogether, the power of God’s forgiveness in the lives of the spiritually minded is far more than an evangelical creed.
2. Knowledge of God is always more than sound theology
Traditionally, we have been accustomed to celebrating those whose sound theology and eloquent articulations have shaped evangelical discourse. The spiritually minded, however, are not satisfied by simply pledging allegiance to sound theology.