Next comes the silver. This stands for greed of money or money’s worth, for material objects that can be bought, and even for riches themselves. Or it may be that the offender is not interested in riches themselves but in their ability to give him a position of honor in the eyes of the world. He wants to be considered important and to have adulation or applause. Often he wants to be a leader, not because he has a message to give but to be important. He is the victim of egotism. Now this is a base and ignoble sin; an insurmountable barrier across the spiritual path.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10).
It has been said that pride, vanity and ego are the gateways through which many of us pass on the way to more serious sins. Greed for money, power or adulation are sins that appear in our lives when we allow ourselves to pass through the portal of self. Self-righteousness, self-pity, self-recrimination and self-centeredness are insurmountable barriers to our relationship with God.
It is only when we overcome the self, that we open the gateway for the Holy Spirit to direct and fill our lives. When we do overcome the carnal human spirit, then the scales fall from our eyes and the mud from our ears. We are then able to experience and understand the wise counsel and guidance the Holy Spirit provides. Then we have “eyes to see, and ears to hear” the advocacy provided by God’s spirit in us. Then the barriers to God melt away and we receive the desire to rise above sin.
It is then that a different gateway opens in our lives. That gateway leads to the garden God created for us. That garden shields us form vanity, pride and ego. And when exposed to sin, that garden frees us from its death grip, and empowers us to live in hope, faith and love.
Freed,
Z gardener
Good Morning Garden 
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