You can’t buy your way into heaven, no matter how much wealth you amass. That won’t come as a surprise to most of you. Yet somehow, subconsciously, we end up trying. Every time we feel entitled to reward because of our good deeds, we have diminished good deeds to a mere currency with which we can buy a slice of heaven. Every time we feel slighted for the ill fortune that befalls us in spite of our goodness, we have reduced God’s living Providence into a mere balance sheet of good countered by evil. It is only when we realize that goodness is its own reward that we can be free from the allure of heaven as a reward. Heaven is not a reward; heaven is the natural result of a life of goodness.