As I was thinking about what my main ambitions in life are, of course, they all centered around Christ. Below are three of my biggest ambitions in life.
To glorify God and enjoy Him forever
My highest ambition in life is to always spend my waking hours thinking and working with all my heart to bring glory to the Lord. Jesus is such a wonderful God that He alone is worthy to be exalted and praised through my thoughts and actions – all the time. I believe we were created to worship God and to enjoy our relationship with Him. I can think of nothing more wonderful than to show the world how awesome a God we serve.
To hear the Lord say to me: “Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your lord.”
If you are familiar with the parable of the talents in (Matthew 25) then you probably realize that God wants us to use our time, talents, and treasury to glorify Him and build up His kingdom. And when we do this we should get excited to hear the Lord say to us: “…Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25:23). Oh, how I long to hear my Lord say to me: “enter into the joy of your Lord.”
To be on the devil’s most wanted list
I love what Leonard Ravenhill shared when he said: “My main ambition in life is to be on the devil’s most wanted list.”1 Satan knows when Christians are passionate about worshipping God and spending time in serious prayer that he is in major trouble. And while he will do everything in his power to get us to stop worshipping God and praying, he knows that a holy Christian is wholly sold out to Jesus and that his kingdom is in serious trouble. If only more Christians would desire to be on the devil’s most wanted list we would usher in the greatest revival since the book of Acts.
Seeking God, knowing Him, and sharing Jesus are my greatest desires in life – I hope they are yours too!
1 Notable Christians: Leonard Ravenhill – CultureWatch (billmuehlenberg.com)
What’s My Main Ambition? a note by mneveu
3 ambitions: glorifying God, hearing “well done,” and living with enough spiritual seriousness to become troublesome to the enemy.
The added edge here, for me, maybe for you too… is the inconvenient fact that Christianity keeps refusing to hide for me. The greatest obstacle between me and those ambitions above… is frequently me.
What’s My Main Ambition? To Die Empty.
Curt asks a dangerous question because most people answer it with a résumé: success, comfort, family, money, influence, retirement. None of those are evil. They are simply too small to carry the weight of a human soul.
My ambition is simpler and more severe: to spend what God gave me before I stand before Him.
But there is a problem.
Me.
I am still painfully human, spectacularly capable of sin, distraction, pride, laziness, anger, self-importance, and occasionally mistaking my own opinion for divine revelation. Scripture does not flatter this condition. Paul describes the war between the flesh and the Spirit in Galatians 5:17. Romans 7 reads like the field report of anyone who has sincerely tried to become holy.
So I harbor no romantic illusion that finishing well will be easy.
I don’t want to arrive in heaven polished, preserved, and spiritually unused. I want the gifts spent, the scars earned, the truth spoken, the grace given, and the assignment finished.
But getting there means repeatedly dragging my stubborn backside back to the Cross.
Curt wants to hear, “Well done.” So do I, man. But I gotta tell ya,
faithfulness is not one heroic decision. It is ten thousand smaller deaths to myself.
And Ravenhill’s “devil’s most wanted list”? That is not swagger. A praying, obedient, repentant Christian becomes dangerous precisely because he knows where his strength does not come from.
My ambition? To finish with nothing left but Christ, knowing full well that Christ will carry me across the finish line.