I'm reading "Desiring God" by John Piper right now and am thoroughly enjoying it! Here's a quote from a wonderful chapter entitled: "Money: The Currency of Christian Hedonism."
"In [1 Timothy 6:7, Paul] ... says 'For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.' There are no U-Hauls behind hearses. Suppose someone passes empty-handed through the turnstile at a big-city art museum and begins to take the pictures off the wall and carry them importantly under his arm. You come up to him and say, "What are you doing?
He answers, "I'm becoming an art collector."
"But they're not really yours," you say, "and besides, they won't let you take any of those out of here. You'll have to go out just like you came in."
But he answers, "Sure they're mine. I've got them under my arm. People in the halls look at me as an important dealer. And I don't bother myself with thoughts about leaving. Don't be a killjoy."
We would call this man a fool! He is out of touch with reality. So is the person who spends himself to get rich in this life. We will go out just the way we came in.
Or picture 269 people entering eternity through a plane crash in the Sea of Japan. Before the crash, there are a noted politician, a millionaire corporate executive, a playboy and his playmate. and a missionary kid on the way back from visiting his grandparents. After the crash, they stand before God utterly stripped of Mastercards, checkbooks, credit lines, image clothes, how-to-succeed books, and Hilton reservations. Here the politician, the executive, the playboy, and the missionary kid, all on even ground with nothing, absolutely nothing, in their hands, possessing only what they brought in their hearts. How absurd and tragic the lover of money will seem on that day - like a man who spends his whole life collecting train tickets and in the end is so weighed down by the collection that he misses the last train. Don't spend your precious life trying to get rich, Paul says, 'for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.'"