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Today's Devotional

I call with all my heart; answer me, Lord, and I will obey your decrees.
I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes.
I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.
My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises

—Psalm 119:145-148 (NIV)

To be heavenly-minded, in the true and scriptural sense, is to carry our holy Christianity into every department of life, and with it to elevate and hallow every relation and engagement. There is no position in which the providence of God places his saints, for which the grace of Jesus is not all sufficient, if sincerely and earnestly sought. Nor is there any sphere, however humble, or calling, however mean, to which the life of Jesus in the soul may not impart dignity, luster, and sacredness. Christianity, through all grades, and classes, and occupations, is capable of diffusing a divine, hallowing, and ennobling influence, transforming and sanctifying all that it touches. Blessed and holy are they who know it from personal and heartfelt experience.

But “if we be risen with Christ,” what is it to seek those things which are above, and to set our affections not on things on the earth? In other words, what is true heavenly-mindedness? It involves the habitual and close converse with God. The life of the soul can only be sustained by constant and ceaseless emanations from the life of God. There must be a perpetual stream of existence flowing into it from the “Fountain of Life”....

As the total absence of the breath of prayer marks the soul “dead in trespasses and sins,” so the waning of the spirit of prayer in the quickened soul as surely defines a state in which all that is spiritual within is “ready to die.” Let nothing, then, rob you of this precious means of advancing your heavenly-mindedness—nothing can be its substitute.

About the author and the source

Octavius Winslow (1808–1878) was an ardent evangelical preacher who served in the United States and in Great Britain. In addition to many books that emphasized the life and work of Christ, he wrote morning and evening devotionals.