Quotes about Materialism

The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.

I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it's because we don't dare them, not because we don't entertain them. It's because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what are they to do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?

Lord, steady our feet when the world tries to rock and shake our faith. When materialism beckons with coy hands, steady our feet. When lust sashays within us, steady our feet. When fear tugs at our knees, steady our faith. Show us your goodness, and steady our hearts in you. Amen.

truth is that much stands in the way of God's will for our world, beasts like what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the giant triplets of evil: racism, militarism, and materialism.

I remember hearing a story about Clarence Jordan, a pecan farmer and theologian down in Georgia. He was speaking to a wealthy congregation that had an enormous gold cross. He asked how much they had paid for it. They explained that it was a gift from a wealthy donor and told him how much it was. When he heard how much it cost, he said, "Wow! Ya'll got ripped off. Christians used to be able to get a cross for free!" Brilliant.

The human shapes moving past him in the streets of the city were physical objects without any meaning.

Love of our brothers? That's when we learned to hate our brothers for the first time in our lives. We began to hate them for every meal they swallowed, for every small pleasure they enjoyed, for one man's new shirt, for another's wife's hat, for an outing with their family for a paint job on their house--it was taken from us, it was paid for by our privations, our denials, our hunger.

He got born in the historical moment of no more free lunch. Friends will probably count more than money, because wanting too much stuff is going to be toxic.

Our joy ends where love of the world begins.

The best things in life are gifts from the One who steadfastly loves us. But an important question to ask ourselves is this: are we in love with God or just His stuff?

False riches, consisting of money, houses and lands, acquired by selfish means at cost to others and thereafter used selfishly, are almost always used for the oppression of other persons.

We care more for our possessions with which we hope to make our way in the world than with our thoughts and dreams which tell us who we are in the world.