GODLY AMBITION

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”

This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.

Romans 15:19b-22

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

What ambitions do you have in life?

We all have them unless we are completely lazy.

Maybe your ambitions are professional or they might be personal but I think nearly everyone aspires to achieve something. We definitely have a tendency to be goal oriented people.

These ambitions can be classified in many categories once determined whether they are professional or personal but let’s keep it simple for the sake of this message and what the Lord is trying to convey to us today. We’re going to consider ambitions as being either worldly or spiritual and when I say spiritual, I am of course meaning as related to the Lord.

Let’s first look at a few worldly ambitions.

At this very moment, I am approaching 62 years of age and have worked my entire life since reaching adulthood. Over that time, I have gained a great deal of success because I had ambitions, especially across a twenty-eight and a half year military career in the Navy where I started where everyone does from an enlisted standpoint, at the bottom. Quickly realizing I didn’t want to stay in that rank forever, I worked hard to advance. The Navy would set forth levels of achievement needed to be promoted and all a person had to do was work to those levels of excellence and they could expect to be advanced. By the time it was all over, I had moved from the most junior enlisted rank to the highest, to the level reached by less than one percent of all enlisted Sailors. This great career taught me the importance of ambition and the great feelings that come when you set and reach goals but none of my success would have been possible if the Lord didn’t want it to happen. As I moved from rank to rank, gaining more and more authority and responsibility, I gave God the glory and committed myself to serve my Navy and nation in the way He wanted me to and not by way of my own understanding and wisdom.

This was my pathway through a professional career. You will have your own story and while I am getting ever closer to retirement, many of you are not so close and still navigating your own careers. My encouragement to you is to not only remain ambitious but place your trust and hope in the Lord as you labor. He will always place you where He wants you to be to do what He wants you to do and as you are obedient to Him, He will often elevate you in authority and responsibility so you can influence more and more people for His sake.

I also had educational ambitions during my life. While I was serving in the Navy, I was provided the opportunity to go to college and have it funded. And so I started attending a community college and earned my Associates degree. Then I decided to move to a four year college and earned my Bachelors degree there after which I continued on to complete a Masters degree four years later. I give thanks for the gift of higher learning and the Lord blessed me with the strength and perseverance to finish what I started. He also put me in college classroom environments where conversations often included discussion about beliefs and principles. During these times, I had the opportunity to testify about my Christian faith and how I apply it to living life. Just as in my professional career, the Lord helped lead and guide me through obtaining three degrees, always placing me in the places He wanted me to be to accomplish the education He wanted me to have while allowing me the chance to proclaim Him along the way.

Perhaps you have your own educational goals in life. Prayerfully consider pursuing them and allow the Lord to be your guide. He will make the way clear and see you through, one class at a time, until you reach the finish line and receive your degree if you simply let Him do so.

On a personal note, I guess physical fitness is one of my constant ambitions and one I need to always push. I don’t know about you but I could easily just rest in my recliner or nap on the couch instead of getting on my treadmill for a run or climbing on my exercise bike to pedal several miles. Of course, the motivator here is good health but it’s also the Lord reminding me that this body is a temple carrying around my soul and so I need to take care of it for as long as I can. It’s also the means by which the Lord moves me from point to point to do His work. My lips speak His words and bring Him praise but those actions are initiated by my brain. I use my hands to embrace others in fellowship and love but I couldn’t get to them if it weren’t for my legs and feet getting me there and my heart being full of affection for people. We need our bodies to do what the Lord wants us to do and so we need to keep them as healthy as possible. Exercise is hard but I’ve never had the Lord fail to give me the strength to do it when I set my mind to it. I think you’ll find this will apply the same to you and I encourage you to set a goal for better fitness in the new year.

Well, as you can see, there are ambitions we have in life and these ambitions can be completely worldly or we can see how the Lord can help us within achieving worldly goals when they fit into His grand scheme for our lives.

But what about spiritual ambitions, ambitions that are first and foremost focused on the Lord and His expectations for our lives?

This was what we find the Apostle Paul centered on in today’s passage from the penultimate chapter in his letter to the Romans. Look again at his words here:

So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”

This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.  Romans 15:19b-22

What was Paul’s main goal in life?

It was to fully proclaim the Gospel of Jesus wherever God led him, whether it was in Jerusalem or “all the way around to Illyricum”, which was another way of saying he had fulfilled Jesus’ call to take the message of salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Why did he go to all these places outside of Jerusalem?

Because he was motivated by God to bring the Gospel to places where “Christ was not known” and this would ensure a prediction by the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled, a prediction Paul quotes in our passage:

“Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” Isaiah 52:15

Paul didn’t wish to build upon the foundation someone had already established in Christ. In those places, the seeds of the Gospel had already been sown. Instead, Paul sought to go to new places to share the good news of Jesus to those who had not been told of Him so that they would then have heard of Him and be able to understand the salvation only gained through Him.

Friends, Paul shows us the way to godly ambitions in life, ambitions initiated by God for those who seek His direction and guidance. As we are starting a new year, we face new opportunities to share the Gospel with those who have not heard it so that they might find their way to eternal life.

I hope you’ll join me in continuing to aspire to that kind of outcome each and every day.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com