Plantinga: Longing and Hope

As a believer, my hope is in Christ and Christ alone and my long is in the life to come and not this life. I believe if a person has this two ideas in perspective, it brings all other things into focus. If Christ is my only hope, it makes it hard to be prideful in myself because Understanding that within myself lies nothing to which to be prideful about but as the apostle paul says "I boast in Christ alone." If Christ is all that in hope in, and I know that Christ (who I hope in) gave me something which I do not deserve but he gave it by grace alone, it breaks it into understanding as to why I was in-turn commanded to show grace to other who in-turn do not deserve it. If, however, I claim to have any hope in myself, i make Christ to be not and myself to be everything and thus establish myself as God while rejecting the one true God.

Like hope, if once longing is properly set in the right place, it will affect the very way we live. There a phrase often quoted to people who's focus is on heaven and not on earth, people say "you are to heavenly minded that you are not good for anything." I do not know the origin of this quote but I do know what it means now. It seems people (some Christian included) believe that Christians should not be so focused on heaven than they don't do any good on the earth (spiritually). I believe, however, that a person who is focused on heaven will do the greatest earthly good. My logic for such a statement is simply this, If Heaven is the real home of a believer, then the best thing a believer could do is to focus on it. Now, It is true that a person could so long for heaven that they neglect their mission on earth (the gospel) but I believe this is a believer who is not really in the same place Christ is.

As a believer, If I truly believe if you were heavenly minded, you would do the command of Christ to care for the orphans and widow in distress. You would be so heavenly minded that you would their to bring all people to the knowledge of Christ and thus bring them to the knowledge of their true home in heaven. In other words, you would begin to show people what a holiday at the beach looks like and show them just how ridicules it is to remain in the gutter making mud pies.