Stopping to Think

In Matthew 13:44 Jesus says, " The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."  What is the kingdom of heaven?  Jesus many times refers to it as His kingdom, essentially it is where believers dwell with God.  And Jesus says that this is so valuable that he compares it to a treasure we would sell all of our possessions to obtain.   Is this how we value our relationship with God?  Are we so caught with Him that we would consider Him our highest treasure?  Would we be willing to forsake our jobs, our money, our lives, our reputations, our friends, our family, our popularity, etc for the sake of gaining Christ?  Can we say with Paul in Philippians 3:7-8, " But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.   Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his ...

So.  A few quick thoughts on something that has been ripping at my mind and wrenching at my heart lately.  I have lost many hours of sleep to it without necessarily finding so many answers as I do more questions.  But here is my primary question?  What does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?  What should life as a Christian look like?  I look around and see all these different ideas clashing in culture, in our church sub-culture, in society in general, but in the midst of all these ideas I notice a lack of sufficient answers.  Rare is the person that you can look at and say "Wow. They have something different. They must be a Christian."  And yet the very term Christian finds its origin back in the 1st century, it's literal meaning is "little Christ".  People used it as a derogatory term to make fun of believers in Jesus, or as Luke calls them in Acts, followers of the Way.  That last term I think is an int...