The answer
Though Christ is rich, for our sake He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich and He may become our treasure. Oftentimes, our hearts are attached to our money and wealth and ignore the Giver of these blessings, so that we become like children who became attached to their toys rather than to the parents who gave them the toys. For this reason, parents sometimes take away these toys; not forever, but only to help them pay more attention to those who truly love them.
St. John Chrysostom says, “As if a child possessing a toy, should prefer it to things necessary, and his father, to lead him against his will to what was better for him, should deprive him of his toy; so God takes these things from us, that He may lead us to heaven.”993 “This wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use. For when you die, willingly or unwillingly, all that you have goes to others, and they again give it up to others, and they again to others.”994
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
993 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to Timothy 1 (NPNF I/13:412).
994 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to Timothy 11 (NPNF I/13:443).