Riches

Riches

If you want to be rich, you might as well resign yourself to a life of hard labor on “the altar of wealth.” You will have to sacrifice your sense of righteousness and your honor. Your health, your sleep and your conscience, your good reputation and even your soul will be required of you. At the same time, you will pierce yourself through with many sorrows, and you will be hated because you kept back what should have brought joy to others. God is rich! He owns heaven and earth. But He has given it all to us, saying, “All things are yours.” None of us can rightfully say that what we have belongs to us or that we own anything. Although we hold the deed to our property, we are only stewards over the resources God has entrusted to us. Furthermore, we are unfaithful stewards if we have this world’s goods and see our brother suffering a lack of the basic necessities and do not help him. Soon we must leave our wealth and pass it on to others. What will we have gained from all our striving for riches? We have gathered much, but others will use it, and our heirs will look forward to our death. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. People go into eternity with their heart full of love for the gold that others will consume. Is this not vanity of vanities?

So let us not be occupied with material things, but rather let us endeavor to gather treasures where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves cannot break in and steal—precious, eternal treasures. Do not forget to share and to do good, for such sacrifices please God and save us from the spirit of miserliness. This spirit is able to starve its victim to death, even if he has enough money to support a whole community. Look how pathetic the miser is! Even from a human point of view he is a fool. He is rich, but in the midst of his wealth he is so pitifully poor that he would happily grab hold of the widow’s mite.

So don’t delay. Take up the battle against the pursuit of wealth and the spirit of miserliness. These two vices are directly related.