Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. Ecclesiastes 5:10
“The first of all English games is making money. That is an all-absorbing game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at football, or any other rougher sport; and it is absolutely without purpose; no one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why.
Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money–he never knows. He doesn’t make it to do any thing with it. He gets it only that he may get it. “What will you make of what you have got?” you ask, “Well, I’ll get more,” he says.
Just as as cricket you get more funds, there is no use in the runs but to get more of them than other people in the game. And there is no use in the money; but to have more of it than other people in the game.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, compiled by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1895) 18.
Ask yourself this question as you consider your work on this Monday in Lent: Do I work to accumulate money or do I work to have something to return to God, to care for my family, and to share with those in need (cf. Ephesians 4:28)?