The Worship of Mammon, by Evelyn De Morgan (1909).

I recently preached through Jesus’ master treatment of money and possessions in Matt. 6:19-34.

Here are a few quotable nuggets of wisdom I came across in my studies.

Martin Luther:

“I have held many things in my hands and have lost them all.  But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.“

Jim Elliot:

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

John Wesley:

“I value things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”

David Livingstone:

“I place no value on anything I possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God.”

Randy Alcorn:

“You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.”

John Piper:

“When anxiety strikes and blurs our vision of God’s glory and the greatness of the future that he plans for us, this does not mean that we are faithless, or that we will not make it to heaven.  It means our faith is being attacked.”

G. Campbell Morgan:

“The measurements of your lives cannot be circumscribed by the point where blue sky kisses green earth.  All the fact of your life cannot be encompassed in the one small sphere upon which you live.  You belong to the infinite.  If you make your fortune on the earth—poor, silly, soul—you have made a fortune, and stored it in a place where you cannot hold it.  Make your fortune, but store it where it will greet you in the dawning of the new morning.”

John MacArthur:

“During one of the many Roman persecutions, soldiers broke into a certain church to confiscate its presumed treasures.  An elder is said to have pointed to a group of widows and orphans who were being fed and said, ‘There are the treasures of the church.’”

D. A. Carson:

“The point is that the things most highly treasured occupy the ‘heart,’ the center of the personality, embracing mind, emotions, and will; and thus the most cherished treasure subtly but infallibly controls the whole person’s direction and values.”

“Either God is served with a single-eyed devotion, or he is not served at all.  Attempts at divided loyalty betray, not partial commitment to discipleship, but deep-seated commitment to idolatry.”

William Barclay:

“Jesus never said that this world was unimportant; but he said and implied over and over again that its importance is not in itself, but in that to which it leads.  This world is not the end of life, it is a stage on the way; and therefore a man should never lose his heart to this world and to the things of this world.  His eyes ought to be for ever fixed on the goal beyond.”

Stanley D. Toussaint:

“The primary work of the subjects f the kingdom in their relationship to God is to give implicit, complete, and wholehearted devotion to Him.  This dedication will be marked by freedom  from care, for God will sustain them.”

John Calvin:

“It is, no doubt, true, that believers themselves are never so perfectly devoted to obedience to God, as not to be withdrawn from it by the sinful desires of the flesh.  But as they groan under this wretched bondage, and are dissatisfied with themselves, and give nothing more than an unwilling and reluctant service to the flesh, they are not said to serve two masters: for their desires and exertions are approved by the Lord, as if they rendered to him a perfect obedience.  But this passage reproves the hypocrisy of those who flatter themselves in their vices, as if they could reconcile light and darkness.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“That is the great principle of which I must constantly remind myself — that I am a child of the Father placed here for His purpose, not for myself.  I did not choose to come I have not brought myself here; there is a purpose in it all.  God has given me this great privilege of living in this world, and if He has endued me with any gifts, I have to realize that, although in one sense all these things are mine, ultimately, as Paul shows at the end of I Corinthians 3, they are God’s.  Therefore, regarding myself as one who has this great privilege of being a caretaker for God, a custodian and steward, I do not cling to these things.  They do not become the centre of my life and existence.  I do not live for them or dwell upon them constantly in my mind; they do not absorb my life.  On the contrary, I hold them loosely; I am in a state of blessed detachment from them.  I am not governed by them; rather do I govern them; and as I do this I am steadily securing, and safely laying up for myself, ‘treasures in heaven.’”