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Handling Money to Meet God’s Approval, June 17
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:20, 21
, NKJV.
Many fathers and mothers are poor in the midst of abundance. They abridge,
in a degree, their own personal comforts and frequently deny themselves of those
things that are necessary for the enjoyment of life and health, while they have ample
means at their command. They feel forbidden, as it were, to appropriate their means
for their own comfort or for charitable purposes. They have one object before them,
and that is to save property to leave for their children.
This idea is so prominent, so interwoven with all their actions, that their children
learn to look forward to the time when this property will be theirs. They depend
upon it, and this prospect has an important but not a favorable influence upon their
characters. Some become spendthrifts, others become selfish and avaricious, and
still others grow indolent and reckless. Many do not cultivate habits of economy;
they do not seek to become self-reliant. They are aimless, and have but little stability
of character. The impressions received in childhood and youth are wrought in the
texture of character and become the principle of action in mature life....
With the light of God’s Word, so plain and clear in reference to the money lent
to stewards, and with the warnings and reproofs which God has given through the
Testimonies in regard to the disposition of means—if, with all this light before
them, children either directly or indirectly influence their parents to divide their
property while living, or to will it mainly to the children to come into their hands
after the death of their parents, they take upon themselves fearful responsibilities.
Children of aged parents who profess to believe the truth should, in the fear
of God, advise and entreat their parents to be true to their profession of faith, and
take a course in regard to their means which God can approve. Parents should lay
up for themselves treasures in heaven by appropriating their means themselves to
the advancement of the cause of God. They should not rob themselves of heavenly
treasure by leaving a surplus of means to those who have enough; for by so doing
they not only deprive themselves of the precious privilege of laying up a treasure in
the heavens that faileth not, but they rob the treasury of God.—
Testimonies for the
Church 3:119, 120
.
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