I love ambition.
My entire life, I have been ambitious. I want to accomplish something. If I’m not working toward a big goal, I get frustrated.
I would not enjoy working with someone who doesn’t have ambition. Blind ambition and selfish ambition, I want to avoid. But a desire for success that serves God’s Kingdom is my definition of godliness.
“In the beginning God created …” stands as the most ambitious statement ever!
Cultural winds today trend to disqualify the ambitious as self-serving and suppressive. In the 60’s, our collective hippie wisdom was ‘down with the system’ and don’t trust anyone over the age of 30.
We didn’t trust the ambitious.
I’m 67 now.
I’m more ambitious than ever. My Savior spoke to me personally and said, “Reach the world with the Good News of Jesus.” (Mark 16, Matthew 28, and Acts 1.)
The essence of the Gospel is ambition. God created the world. Jesus told us to save the world.
God inspired ambition is needed now more than ever.
Biblical guidelines teach that the pursuit of self is arrogant ambition but Kingdom pursuit releases the power of the Spirit. When I say that you need Jesus — am I suppressing your individuality or am I speaking words of truth that will set you free?
My formula for success is to find God’s specific will and pursue it with everything that I have. The guardrail to keep ambition from crashing is the simple question, “Is what I’m doing serving the Gospel and Kingdom purposes?”
I find emotional health in ambition. My observation is that those who lose the ‘take it to world’ good news ambition, flounder in their faith. They have a semblance of godliness but do not experience the power of the Spirit.
Jesus did say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Being ‘poor in spirit’ is pure ambition and Jesus gives the complete statement as, “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
You cannot get more ambitious.
The church will come through this current crises. I pray for a resurgence of Kingdom ambition.