The thought that you could live like a Christian while holding on to the world and worldliness is an empty, deluded thought. Whoever lives by this thought will never learn anything more than pharisaism and imaginary life, that is, he will be a Christian only in his own opinion, and not in fact. At first he will destroy with one hand what he created with another, that is, what he gathered while away from the world will be stolen from him at his first re-entrance into it. From this it is a direct path to opinion, for what was stolen from the heart may still remain in the memory and imagination. Now, remembering and imagining how it was before, the man might think that it is still that way; meanwhile it has evaporated and only traces of it are left in the memory. He will think that he has what he has not. The judgment upon him is this: For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them (Matthew 25.29). It is one step from opinion to pharisaism, and hardened pharisaism is a terrible state.

—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation