What principles can we take from the following texts regarding how we should deal with money?

 1 Tim. 6:17

 2 Cor. 4:18

 Prov. 30:8

 Eccles. 5:10

 Money can have a powerful hold on human beings, a hold that has led to the ruin of many. Who has not heard of people who have done terrible things because of money — even when they already had a lot of it to begin with?

 It doesn’t have to be that way, though. By God’s power, we can overcome the enemy’s attempt to take what was meant to be a blessing (material possessions) and turn them into a curse.

 In the context of being a good steward in planning for death, one danger that people face is the temptation to hoard assets now, justifying that hoarding with the idea that, well, “When I die, I can give it all away then.” Though better than just spending it all now (one billionaire had said that he knew that he would be living right only if the check for his funeral bounced), we can and should do better than that.

 “I saw that many withhold from the cause while they live, quieting their consciences that they will be charitable at death; they hardly dare exercise faith and trust in God to give anything while living. But this deathbed charity is not what Christ requires of His followers; it cannot excuse the selfishness of the living. Those who hold fast their property till the last moment surrender it to death rather than to the cause. Losses are occurring continually. Banks fail, and property is consumed in very many ways. Many purpose to do something, but they delay the matter, and Satan works to prevent the means from coming into the treasury at all. It is lost before it is returned to God, and Satan exults that it is so.” — Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church,vol. 5,p. 154.