Your petition breathes a holy watchfulness over your own heart, and it is well that it should be so, for our Lord Himself has said, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. You have prayed according to wisdom in asking that the love of money, which is the root of all evil and which has pierced many through with many sorrows, might not have dominion over you.
We join our hearts with yours in this prayer, that the Lord would keep deception and lies far from you and feed you with food convenient for you, giving you neither poverty nor riches, but what is sufficient. If riches increase, may you not set your heart upon them, but remember that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and that had any other condition been better for you than that in which you are, your God would have put you there. Contentment is a flower of heaven and it must be cultivated, for our nature is prone to pride when the barns are full and to murmuring when the store is scant. Pray that you may learn, in whatsoever state you are, therewith to be content, and that with godliness you may find great gain, being humble before Him and rich in good works, ready to distribute and willing to communicate, laying up treasure in heaven.
The true antidote to this greed is indeed that first and great commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Between the true believer and Christ there is a living, loving, lasting union, and where that love flows in its full stream, the love of the world is driven out. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The Lord our God is not a dead force nor a phantom conjured by imagination, but the living God, a God with a great warm loving heart, who rules and overrules in nature and providence and grace. When the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to the poor empty sinner and that sinner is plunged into Christ's fullness, then covetousness loses its power. We love one another for Christ's sake, we love sinners for Christ's sake, and we love the truth as Christ loves it. So shall your love to your neighbor flow in the same channel as Christ's love to you, rubbing off upon those around you, constraining you to seek the lost, for there is salvation in none other, and no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved but the name of Jesus.
We pray with you that you may be kept from the thorns that choke the word, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entering in, and that you may be kept from temptation and from the evil one who blinds the minds of men. May the Lord show you His marvelous loving kindness, first to your intellect that you may adore Him, and then in your life that you may display it, keeping a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment.
May He who is able to keep you from falling, and who will not lose one of His members, keep you faithful until that day when this loving union shall be consummated in glory, and may all be to the praise of His grace. Amen.