The Ambition Question

OK … ladies and gentlemen … thought for the day … well maybe this is enough for a couple of days … this is pretty long … read this at your own risk …

NOTE : Feel free to share any / all of this to the ones that God lays on your heart …

THE QUESTION :
Ambition ... good or bad ?

THE DEFINITION:
1.
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment:

2.
the object, state, or result desired or sought after:

3.
desire for work or activity; energy:

4.
to seek after earnestly; aspire to.

Too many times we think that ambition is not a good thing ... you know why we think that ? It is because we subscribe to the first definition ... an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Ambition for a believer / follower of Jesus Christ should not be about striving for achievement, gaining power, being bestowed with honor, acquiring fame, or amassing great wealth ... but rather about aspiring to and earnestly seeking after God and His calling on our life ... we should have ambition ... we should aspire to and long to find out for ourselves what we are here for ! We should hunger to know more ... not for the sake of knowledge ... we can have knowledge and still be a failure ... knowledge must be applied and used according to His plan ... you have sat under professors in school that HAVE the knowledge but lack the passion to teach it ... you know the type ... the ones that are uptight ... unwilling to discuss alternate methods of solving problems ... they are more interested in the process ( details ) than the outcome ( getting the right answer ) ... they want to make sure you get through all the material … makes no difference if you understand it … just like the church of today … but I digress

FOCUS:
Ambition is not, in and of itself, the problem ... the problem is WHAT we are ambitious FOR ... God has made us ambitious… even as a child we can’t wait to crawl … then once we have mastered crawling we want to walk … and then run … you get the picture … what would you think about a child that did not want to crawl or walk or run ? Probably the same thing God says about the ones of us that have no ambition … LAZY … COMPLACENT … LUKEWARM …right ?

So why is that we are satisfied with where we are at right now with our Heavenly Father ? Is it wrong to dream the big dreams ? Dreams ( ambitions ) are what keep us going … passion should fuel our fire …

Why is it that our heart beats wildly when someone talks of great things ? For instance, when folks come back from missions work and tell of what God has done through them why do we want to go with them next time ? Why do we want to jump up and scream … YEAH !!! It is because of those ambitions that God has placed in you … they are there … you can push them away … but they are there … maybe after a while they “seem” to go away … but I submit to you that they do not go away … we are just “numb” … we learn to deal with them … we become insensitive … dead, in a sense … dead on the inside

Have you ever noticed that the ones with great ambition seem to create their own future ? They don’t just enter into the future … they run to it and help create it … to create the future we have to dream it … then act upon it … you will never achieve what you haven’t first seen in your mind in dreams !

The numb ones of us ( the ones that have no passion and no ambition ) never consider the appropriateness of their actions … they don’t really think about what the consequences are … they just act out what they know and think they understand … they speak with complacency and with indifference … as a result, those that LONG for a better world, better church, better society are along for the ride … while the dead are forging out their future ( and our future ) we just sit idly by and WISH things could be different … am I right ?

Sometimes indifference is truly the issue … but more often than not we have misplaced thoughts and beliefs … we that want things to be different … we KNOW things SHOULD be different but we think that it is ALWAYS God’s place to rein these dead ones in … we wait for him to “take care of them “ … hogwash … this type of thinking breeds spiritual complacency and in the end is a cop out … we just don’t want to get our hands dirty … we don’t want to risk … (risk - that is an entirely separate sermon right there) Admit it … God created us to engage … solve problems … meet needs … God says BE AMBITIOUS … BE PASSIONATE …

Do not be afraid, I have ransomed you. I have called you by name and you are mine.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go
through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the
fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume
you.

Call out to me, for I am the Lord your God !
Isaiah 43:1-3