The Rev. James Reid D. D.
British Weekly, London, England

"A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15) .....

It is a deeply rooted idea that the more things a man has, the fuller and richer his life. A certain amount of possessions is necessary to life ... Jesus knew this need and sympathized with it. When he saw the anxieties about food and clothing that were eating into the hearts of people he said, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." God knows our need and has provided for it ... Yet Jesus was always insisting also on the peril of possessions.

The explanation of these words of his is simple. What he is warning us about is the idea that the possession of an abundance of things brings life. That is an illusion that dies hard. What he had in mind is to be seen in the man he pictured in the parable that follows. His fields had brought such a rich harvest that he did not know where to store it or what to do with it. So he made up his mind to build greater barns to hoard his wealth. Then he would say to himself, "Thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine case, eat, drink, and be merry." God's answer to that was, "Thou fool!" ....

It is not the possession but the sharing of things that brings the deepest satisfaction. This is a truth that can only be discovered by the practice of giving. The happiest people are those who are always giving. There comes a time in most of our lives when we discover it. The joy of receiving begins to mean little or nothing, except as a token of affection. The real satisfaction is in the experience of giving. A stagnant life that is content to receive and to hoard and has no outlet for what it gathers, will produce nothing ....

We are all stewards. What we have is a trust—nothing more. We are only administrators of our possessions. This means that we must seek God's guiding and take His way. We must find out how He would have us use them. It means for most of us a completely new outlook.

J. D. McCrae
The United Church Observer
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The rich young ruler who came to Jesus with his quest for eternal life has been the object of pity for New Testament readers ever since. He experienced the desire for the great inheritance. He journeyed well up the hill of attainment in his faithful obedience to the Commandments and his practice of the ordinary virtues and decencies of a circumspect life. But he failed of attainment because of the grip with which worldly possessions held him, ... because he was the servant of his possessions ....

He could not bear getting rid of them, so he let the boon of eternal life slip through his fingers instead. And he went away sorrowful. The catch of the story is just here. He should have been happy, for the great possessions he had almost lost were still his. Why sorrowful, then? Because his very contact with Jesus had been the occasion for a glimpse of the worth of the Master's supreme gift, and having seen it he can never be satisfied, though he have all the world, without it ...

This eternal life is the summum bonum. No one in possession of it has ever felt he has paid too much, though many have forsaken houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, children, lands .... No man ever loses by turning everything over to God.

Williamsport Pioneer
Indiana

In establishing our claim for honest and needed material possessions, .... our first need is to "seek ... first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto [us|" (Matt. 6:33); and we may rest assured that there is room enough for all in our Father's kingdom ....

By putting self in the background, and trusting in the Lord with all our hearts, we become attuned to the divine source of supply, and in the proportion to our fidelity to this truth our desires are met. Maybe not in the exact form that we in our selfish, human way had thought them out, but in a way that will lead to an ultimate accomplishment .....

Let us have faith that divine intelligence knows all and supplies all good to those ready to receive it, and in such a compliance true living will be established, expressing a fuller and more comprehensive livelihood to the glory of God.

The Argonaut
San Francisco, California

There have always been two basic concepts of success, and both have had their adherents. But while one group, the supporters of the empirical concept, judged by its visible effects, admit that their notion has flaws, the other is not so ready to make such a concession.

The empiricists, in other words, believe that success lies in getting, but they know well enough that getting does not always bring happiness. The others are fully convinced that success lies in being; and being, they aver, is a spiritual estate which can only come to those whose aims and attainments are in harmonious accord and predicated on the well-being of all .....

Abraham Lincoln attained the highest temporal office which this nation can bestow, but no biographer has ever claimed that it brought him happiness. The empiricists will say that he succeeded because he became President, but many others have become President, and only a few of them are remembered as great. Lincoln was a great man not because of what he became, but because of what he was. Success for him lay not in having but in being, and he must have derived his deepest satisfaction from the wider use of that high intelligence, those qualities of honesty, justice, and mercy, which had always been his.

It is not too much to say that he had, together with others of comparable stature, an understanding heart. That for which Solomon prayed so many centuries ago is still the supremely wise choice of the man who desires true success. He may find that it will also bring him as it did that ancient king, both riches and honor; he may be assured that it will give him that peace of mind and spirit which is beyond price.

In the winning of a war, peace is coincident with success. So it should be for the individual, although the peace he would achieve is higher and more spiritually complex even than accord among nations. But if it is what he truly desires, he will make sacrifices for it; he will discard the empirical concept, and with it, inevitably, some things to his material advantage. But by following the counsel of a greater leader even than Solomon, he will seek first the kingdom of heaven, and find within himself treasure which the things added could never approximate.

Rome News-Tribune
Georgia

In weighing the relative value of wisdom and of gold, the Bible places wisdom first, and with very good reason, since the exercise of wisdom is more important to happiness and welfare than anything else. This truth too often is recognized too late.

The world passed recently through a great and tragically costly war that wisdom could have prevented, and today is torn by destructive dissensions that wisdom could have made impossible. Men wise only in their own conceits constantly are making great and costly blunders that could be avoided by the exercise of wisdom ....

This failure to act with wisdom, with all of failure's tragic accomplishments, often is inexcusable, for wisdom may be obtained by study just as knowledge of the multiplication table, or of geography, or of writing, may be obtained by study.

There is a divinely inspired book of wisdom that is open to all. In its pages one may become acquainted with the wisdom which has guided countless millions successfully and which fits present-day circumstances quite as well as the circumstances prevailing in other days and other times. Its wisdom fits the problems of nations and of individuals, today, tomorrow, and forever. "Seek, and ye shall find."

Halford Luccock, D. D.
The Chaplain
Washington, District of Columbia

Ralph Connor, the novelist, once told a story of a college student he knew in Canada. This boy was an active, able, genial, popular lad, voted by his senior class as the one most likely to succeed. After graduation he went west to seek his fortune. Twenty-five years later he returned for his class reunion. The first of his classmates to meet him was startled. "You've changed!" he exclaimed. "Yes, I've changed." "You're extraordinarily well!" "Yes, I'm very fit." "You've struck it rich!" "Yes. I've struck it rich!" "Gold?" "No, God!"

Could that mean anything real? What could he have meant by striking it rich in God? Well, there are several million people alive today, and there have been uncountable millions in other days, who know exactly what it means to strike it rich in God ....Jesus talked a lot about it; he said, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." He said the rich fool was a fool because he was not "rich toward God." How can a man strike it rich in God? ....

Here are some things as old as the hills, but important. We strike it rich in God when we get the conviction that is at the center of Jesus' revelation that this is God's world, that He is the ultimate power in it and that we are His sons and have a priceless value in His sight. That is the most liberating idea that can come to a man. We strike it rich in God when we bring into our lives His power that can save us from all the destructive forces. And we strike it mighty rich when we learn [the] trick of lasting happiness through finding life by losing it, in the lives of others.

The Rev. H. J. Armitage
The Kootenaian
Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada

There are some things in life that we should never let go. Our faith, our trust, our hope, our youthful piety and humility, our sacred associations, our reverence for God and for spiritual things. .... These things that belong to our peace and eternal salvation should never be parted with. They should be given the priority over all other possessions.