Quotes about materialism

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

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

Jim Elliot

Money never stays with me. It would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way into my heart.

John Wesley

That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you are able to help others; and refuse, so often did you do them wrong.

Augustine

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid that the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own. We are probably giving out too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or haper us. I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.

C.S. Lewis

How different our standard is from Christ’s. We ask how much a man gives. Christ asks how much he keeps.

Andrew Murray

Their property held them in chains…chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their souls. They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned;enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.

Cyprian

If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill. For if they have the confidence of riches, they will not mind anything besides, for they shall have the means of screening the wickedness of their ways in their abundant riches.

John Chrysotom

The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so that he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day.

A.W. Tozer

Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority.

John Calvin