Which direction are you going?

The Bible gives us striking, clear, and up-front portraits of God's grace and of a person's
sinfulness and perversion. For example, Hebrews 13:5 states, "Keep your lives free from the love
of money and be content with what you have." and also Matthew 6:33 states, "But seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." These
portraits in scripture serve as instructions and warnings to turn us to God and a life of godliness and away from a life of ungodliness. All this brings together the definition, greed, which I believe for a clearer understanding, that greed is an excessive desire, especially for wealth or possessions.The word 'greed' not only holds its place with money, but also has a place in self desires and also in idols we place in our lives. The story of Gehazi is a sad but true story describing him as "the servant of Elisha," the man of God, who was struck with leprosy because he turned away from God to blur the truth of salvation, as Naaman was healed from leprosy because he turned to God in simple faith. This happenes every day, and in the lives of believers to one degree or another. We see the process and consequences of greed or covetousness which seems to hinder godliness and godly service. It is a picture of unfaithfulness, disloyalty, greed, pride to ones self,of human rationalization that seeks to find good reasons for a bad thing, and also rebellion to authority. The sad part about the story of Gehazi, is that he was not a man without opportunities. He had the privilage of knowing this great man of God who's name was Elisha, and a teacher to Gehazi. Gehazi had the example of Elisha's life and the message of his lips as a tremedous source of instruction, challenge, learning and motivation for godliness and a life of service. Yet he failed to grow through this privilege.The Lord carefully warns us in Matthew 6:21, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Your devotion, your pursuit, your goals, and also your commitment. We might add, when our vision is double, we are unable to lay up treasures in heaven. Our lives, like Gehazi's will be missdirected, disloyal and a disaster from God's view point. Where is my
treasure? where and in what is my system of values? there is simplly no standing still in the pursuit of godliness, drawing close to God, or we are regressing, going downhill. Growth is progressing and we never arrive. If we stop the process we will not simply stand still, we will reverse it and begin to regress. Regression is slow and subtle and deceptive. The signs are there, but we often don't see them until it's too late. A person can be a believer who regularly attends church, is around the word, even involved in christian service, but on a downhill slide into regression. An unknown source says this, "There is a sense in which we are growing in our character each day. The question is in which direction are we growing? are we growing toward Godly character or ungodly character? Are we growing in love or selfishness; in harshness or patience; in greed or in generosity; in honesty or dishonestty; in purity or impurity? Every day we train ourselves in one direction or another by the thoughts we think, the words we say, the actions we take, and the deeds we do" (unkown source).
Our thought patterns shape our character, and our character shapes our conduct. In these verses, there is a definite relationship between thought patterns, personal character, and conduct.
From verse 20, we see something of Gehazi's thought patterns which had helped to move him into
the realm of greed or covetousness. This kind of thinking is not only contrary to God's grace, but has it's roots in the attitudes of the world. We see conduct, deception and defection. Most of the dynamic behind the temptation that Gehazi faced stemmed from his attitude. Gehazi became a slave to his lust patterns because he was not content with what God was doing in his life and the things he had. He became disloyal, unfaithful, and in general, a hindrance to the service of Elisha and the grace of God. It's something we all struggle with everyday throughout our lives,
and that is called Greed, or by other word, Pride. It was something people struggled with back in Bible days, and it's something we struggle with now. It is something that will always be a struggle,but if we keep our eyes on Christ and seek the Kingdom first, we are yet closser to our walk with Christ being full of mercy, grace, and His blessing overflowing in our life. This leads me to the question, which direction are you going? What decisions in life are you making, that make you who you are? The only way we can prevent pride and greed from over taking our life is that we seek first the kingdom of God; keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with the things we have, and then we can see clearly the things God has for us.