Matthew 6:19–21 “Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves
break in and steal, but 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.
If you
asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues,
nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of
the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has
happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of
more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries
with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of
going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was
the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The
New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as
an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in
order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall
ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in
most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope
for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in
from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we
consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the
rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires
not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with
drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant
child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine
what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased.
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