Being Rich toward God

[The] good life, as people are discovering more and more, is simply not good enough.  When virtue is divorced from value, everyone suffers, but they suffer most who thought that possession would lead to pleasure and to security.  They require a new concept of wealth, and there is one ready and waiting for them in the Bible.  Wealth is not what you have; wealth is what you have been given that enables you to give to others....  The Christian’s wealth consists primarily of his or her “creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life,” as The Book of Common Prayer’s General Thanksgiving has it, “. . . but above all . . . for the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.”  To be “rich toward God” is to realize that this is the only wealth that counts.  Wealth is thus neither having nor getting.  Wealth for the Christian begins with receiving that which God is generous enough to give, and from that wealth all charity proceeds.

– from The Good Book, by Peter J. Gomes (1942–2011)