Avarice
by Ralph Rath

Do I have a problem with avarice? Well, I'm not rich and I don't even own a bomber jacket, but I am a pack rat. I don't like to throw anything away. All those things may come in handy someday. This, in a way, is avarice - the inordinate attachment to money or material things or the power and prestige that can go with them.

Like it or not, one day we will come before the judgment seat of God. We are going to go and we can't take anything material with us. Luke 12:15-21 tells of the rich man who decided to build larger barns to contain all his grain and goods. But he died that night. God called the man foolish "who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

A person who is good and cheerful and virtuous is so much happier than the rich person who treasures his worth by his possessions, and you can take your virtues with you into the next life.

"Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with riches that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail and where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Lk 12:33-34).