The Value of Spiritual Mindedness
John Owen (1616-1683) was an English scholar, theologian, chaplain, tutor, pastor, vicar, dean of Christ Church College, and author.
In Spiritual mindedness, Owen writes of the value of being spiritually minded.
Spiritual things… alone can fully and eternally satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts.
Spiritual things are lovely and of great value because they flow from the infinite fountain of divine goodness and so they alone can fully and eternally satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts.
Earthly things must satisfy for a while, but they soon pall, and men soon get bored with them. Earthly things are broken cisterns that can hold no water. But all spiritual things come from and lead to that which is infinite. Therefore, they alone can full satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts and fill them with joy and peace in believing. Spiritual things lead the spiritual heart to the fountain of living waters, the eternal goodness and blessedness.
Spiritual things are lovely and of great value because they are filled with divine wisdom. All God’s wisdom revealed in and by Jesus Christ is to be found in spiritual things. All spiritual and heavenly truths by which we can approach him in faith and obedience through Jesus Christ are filled with divine wisdom… No one will ever have sincere, spiritual desires for spiritual things until they see the wisdom of God in them. Only when our minds are enabled to see and admire this wisdom in divine revelations will our hearts embrace the things revealed.
Setting our desires on heavenly things unites the mind, to them and raises the mind more and more to the perfection of holiness.
Spiritual things are lovely and of great value because they raise the soul to a spiritual and heavenly state… When we fix our desires on spiritual objects, then our natures are more and more transformed into the image of Christ. They exalt our natures above the natural capacity, raising them to the state of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. They uplift and enlighten the mind with wisdom and understanding, for “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from iniquity, that is understanding.” Order and peace is brought to all faculties of the soul.
Setting our desires on heavenly things unites the mind, to them and raises the mind more and more to the perfection of holiness. True wisdom and understanding, with sound judgment of mind in eternal things, holiness in the desires, freedom in the will, power in the heart, and peace in the conscience, do in various degrees fill the souls of the spiritually minded and effectively raise them more and more to that spiritual and heavenly state.
What will it be to be able at last to express not only all the love we now feel, but all the perfected love of infinitely enlarged capability of loving in the equally perfected service of equally enlarged capability of serving?
Spiritual things are lovely and of great value because they give us a foretaste of the glory and blessedness that awaits us in heaven. All who are convinced that there is a future eternal state hope to enter into eternal blessedness and glory when they die. But what that blessedness is they have no idea at all, and if they did they would not know how to enjoy it.
Heaven, or eternal blessedness, is nothing but full enjoyment of those spiritual things which we now enjoy here on earth by faith. This is what makes Christians look forward to that eternal state, for if now by faith they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, what will their joy be like in heaven when they see these things face to face? They know that in heaven their eternal blessedness lies in the full enjoyment of God in Christ, and to this they look forward eagerly because they have already had a foretaste of this enjoyment in their hearts.
The more, therefore, their desires are fixed on spiritual and heavenly things, the nearer to heaven do spiritually minded people feel themselves to be. Indeed, the more we love God, the more like him we are; the more we enjoy him, the more eagerly we will look forward to that everlasting and heavenly blessedness.