Ambition

Today's Bible Reading: ROMANS 15:1-16:27; 2 CORINTHIANS 1:1-2:4

Romans 15:20

and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation

Everyone has some type of ambition. Even for those whose ambition is arrested or absent there still might remain a small ting of desire. We all have some goal regardless of how insignificant or trivial. Even the most apathetic person can have ambition. Ambition gives us the oomph we need to proceed.  It helps us to hurdle the hard times and handle the messy moments of attaining our goals. It drives our desires and disrupts our defeats.

Paul had a monumental ambition. He wanted everyone to hear the gospel. The gospel had completely transformed his life and now he had a burning passion to proclaim the gospel to anyone who had never heard it. He would and did go to the ends of the earth to reach the unreached. There was not distance too far or difficulty to great that would keep him from preaching the gospel.

He was the man for the moment. “Missions” was his middle name. The unreached and unengaged were his audience. Ambition drove him and the Spirit led him. Christ was at the forefront of his communications and the gospel was the main topic of his conversations. Preaching Christ was the purpose for which he was called. Planting the gospel within lives of every person he encountered was his pursuit. Shouldn’t it be ours as well?

In our modern world Christianity is expansive. Its tentacles extend globally. Yet there are many that still have never heard the gospel. They have no gospel presence among them. Jesus is missing from them. We need “new Pauls” that will take up his banner and take hold of his task. We need men and women whose ambition is like Paul’s, to preach the gospel where Christ has not already been named. We need brave believers who will go to the unreached and continue among them until the gospel reaches all of them. We need servant-hearted saints who are not deterred by the difficulties or dissuaded by the distance, but whose higher ambition propels them to the nations to make Christ known.

We as a Christian community must see beyond our local sanctuary to the massive world that is missing Jesus.  We must corporately take on the task of making Christ know to those who don’t know Him.  We must inform the uninformed about the unreached that still remain unreached among us. We must make it our aim to make Jesus known. We must make Paul’s ambition our ambition.

Today check your ambitions. Thank God that because of Paul’s ambition you are saved. Ask the Lord to give you that kind of ambition. Ask Him to make His name known throughout the whole world.