The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
Interpretation
True fulfillment comes from prioritizing spiritual wealth over material possessions.
This quote emphasizes the immense value of spiritual enlightenment and the pursuit of a deeper understanding of life. It suggests that the sacrifices made in seeking a meaningful and virtuous existence are trivial compared to the profound rewards of faith and commitment to a higher purpose. Those who recognize this treasure will willingly let go of their earthly distractions to embrace a more fulfilling life.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of spiritual growth, one might reflect on this quote to underscore the value of prioritizing faith.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others.
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.
We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.
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