Early the next morning the man set out in haste. His plan was to cover six square miles. When he finished the first six, he decided to make it nine, then twelve, and finally fifteen. That meant he would have to walk sixty miles before sundown.
By noon he had covered thirty miles. He became exhausted. About two hundred yards from the finish line, he saw the sun going toward the horizon. He had only a few minutes left. With greed to possess the land, he staggered across the line just in time. Then he reached for his heart and fell down dead.
All the land he got was a piece six feet by two for his grave. He died of greed.
Jesus said it so practically “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mathew 16:26).
In a parable he spoke about storing up riches in heaven than on earth. A rich farmer who saw good yield said: “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’”
But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:16-21)
A wealthy but greedy man, on his deathbed ordered a bag filled with gold coins be placed inside his coffin. In heaven he was told his name was not on the list and so had to wait. His long wait made him hungry and thirsty. He walked up to an eat-out saying to himself “It’s just like I thought. It’s a good thing that I brought some money along with me.”
But he was soon told that the money he had brought along had no value now. Only money that was of any value now was the amount he had given away on earth. The rich man dropped his head in deep thought, because he could not remember having given any money away.
Storing up treasures in heaven implies detaching ourselves from all forms of greed and possessiveness and being generous to the needy. St Paul in his letter to Timothy says that money can even take us away from Faith in God. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (I Timothy 6:12).