MATERIALISM

When you leave this world, will you be known as one who accumulated treasures on earth that you couldn't keep? Or will you be recognized as one who invested treasures in heaven that you couldn't lose?

Randy Alcorn

Another benefit of giving is freedom. It's a matter of basic physics. The greater the mass, the greater the hold that mass exerts. The more things we own – the greater their total mass – the more they grip us, setting us in orbit around them. Finally, like a black hole, they suck us in… We think we own our possessions, but too often they own us... Every item we buy is one more thing to think about, talk about, clean, repair, rearrange, fret over, and replace when it goes bad.

Randy Alcorn

It's increasingly common for Christians to ask one another the tough questions: How is your marriage? Have you been spending time in the Word? How are you doing in terms of sexual purity? Have you been sharing your faith? But how often do we ask, “How much are you giving to the Lord?” or “Have you been robbing God?” or “Are you winning the battle against materialism?”

Randy Alcorn

You know you are a practicing materialist if there is a certain amount of money you think you must accumulate, or something you believe you must buy, before you can be happy.

Rod Rogers

Material possessions tend to focus one’s thoughts and interests on the world only. Wealth gradually enslaves those who are attached to it and perverts their values. The more we have, the easier it is to be possessed by our possessions, comforts, and recreations.

Kent Hughes

Materialism – buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like… If there is no fruit in our lives, and if our focus is on material possessions, we are probably not Christians. We have fooled others and, even more tragically, have fooled ourselves.

Kent Hughes

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Jim Elliot

For we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world (1 Tim. 6:7). There are no U-Hauls behind hearses.

John Piper

If you don't see the greatness of God then all the things that money can buy become very exciting. If you can't see the sun you will be impressed with a street light. If you've never felt thunder and lightning you'll be impressed with fireworks. And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures.

John Piper

The person who thinks the money he makes is meant mainly to increase his comforts on earth is a fool, Jesus says. Wise people know that all their money belongs to God and should be used to show that God, and not money, is their treasure, their comfort, their joy, and their security.

John Piper

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2002, p. 168.

But does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper the faithful? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our God. God does not prosper a man’s business so that man can move from a Buick to a BMW. God prospers a business so that hundreds of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel. He prospers a business so that 20 percent of the world’s population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.

John Piper

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2002, p. 168.

Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have, and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that he is desirable. It is the confidence that he will come through with his promises and that what he promises is more to be desired than all the world.

John Piper

Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 1996, p. 96, used by permission, www.desiringGOD.org.

Jesus warns us that in spending our lives we should be wise shoppers, guarding our hearts against the false advertisements of this world. For whatever we value most in life becomes our “treasure.” And our treasure becomes our hope. In turn, our hope determines how we act, since we always spend our lives on whatever we think will make us happy.

Scott Hafemann

The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Crossway Books, 2001, p. 169.

Material affluence in no respect lessens my need to rely on God. Actually, it increases it. I am in greater spiritual danger when I have plenty than when I have nothing. Hence the almost greater need of the wealthy to cry to God for mercy that they may not fail to trust Him.

Philip Graham Ryken

Perhaps the saddest observation of all is that the spending habits of people in the church differ little from those of the world. The lifestyles of most professing Christians are not substantially different from anyone else’s. Too many in the church have adopted the world’s indulgent attitude toward money. Almost every form of materialistic extravagance and excess has found its way into the fellowship of believers. It is as if the church has forgotten Jesus’ mandate to invest in eternity.

John MacArthur

Investing in Eternity

God has given us people to love and things to use, not people to use and things to love.

Author Unknown

We want personal consecration. I have heard that word pronounced purse and all consecration, a most excellent pronunciation. He who loves Jesus consecrates to Him all that he has, and feels it a delight that he may lay anything at the feet of Him who laid down his life for us.

C.H. Spurgeon

You say, “If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.” You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.

C.H. Spurgeon

Hold material goods and wealth on a flat palm and not in a clenched fist.

Alistair Begg

Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 139.

He who has God and everything else does not have more than He who has God alone.

Popular Puritan Saying

Tragically, many Christians spend precious little time thinking about their eternal home. Instead, they work themselves into oblivion building temporary homes and hideaways.

Hank Hanegraaff

Resurrection, W Publishing Group, 2000, p. 86.

When we come to the end of life, the question will be, “How much have you given?” not “How much have you gotten?”

George Sweeting

Men of Integrity, v. 1, n. 2.

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.

Martin Luther

Christian Reader, v. 35, n. 2.

Materialism wars against our souls in a twofold manner. First it makes us discontent and envious of others. Second, it leads us to pamper and indulge our bodies so that we become soft and lazy.

Jerry Bridges

The key to liberation from the power of materialism is not an exodus from culture – abandoning Wall Street or leaving the wealth of the nation to others – but the grace of giving… Givers for God disarm the power of money. They invite God’s grace to flow through them.

Kent Hughes

Disciplines of a Godly Man, Crossway Books, 1991, p. 186- 187.

I counted dollars, while God counted crosses;

I counted gains, while God counted losses.

I counted my worth, my things gained in store;

And He sized me up by the scars that I bore.

I counted honors and sought degrees,

He counted the hours I spent on my knees.

I never knew until one day by the grave

How vain are the things that we spend life to save.

Author Unknown

God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.

Augustine

I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall most promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time or eternity.

David Livingstone