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The most hilarious mail from today's mail explosion:
How is using char broil grill?
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Hope each of you have a blessed weekend.
Bowl Leader
What’s your favorite worship song?
May God bless you today and always.
Have a blessed day.
Such a profound truth! Good night and God bless!
The Country needs our prayers.
Have a blessed Sunday!
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Absolutely. Ambition is not evil or wrong:
Do everything you do for the glory of the Lord!
Work as if you work for your heavenly father.
(Paraphrasing scripture, hopefully accurately).
Do not make money your God. Do not find your validation in climbing the corporate ladder. Seek to glorify God.
If your ambition is (like mine was) to make tons of money so you can buy a bigger house and have a pool and two brand new luxury cars and fancy vacations...well...that's not necessarily evil. But please center your life on God. Read scripture. Be transformed. I'm slowly shifting away from the desire for the mansion and the ability to see how my life can be meaningful. I don't live in the most modest house. I still have nice cars. But I'm learning to give. To serve others. To use my power and position to make Christ known to my peers, direct reports, and bosses.
It is for me
A bit crass, but my first reaction was to compare the question to the compatibility of being a high performing athlete and smoking weed. Are they compatible? For some, yes. For most smoking pot probably (imho) limits them from achieving their full potential as an athlete. For some it becomes ruinous and ends up destroying them (as an athlete). For me, I probably progressed from the first to the last, to the point where I realized it was not compatible for me and was something I needed to consciously avoid.
Each needs to find their own peace on this subject. Without judging or condemning, I would think that of all the adjectives to describe Christ, “ambitious” would not be in the top ten. But then again, it depends on how one interprets the definition.
Ambitious about spreading the word of God? Ambitious about building an ethical company and being a good employer, improving people's lives, training the next generation of leaders, showing people the example of Christ in business by dealing fairly with customers and vendors? Okay, or even good, I think.
There are a lot of positive ways to be ambitious.
Ambitious purely for your own gain, because you love money or want to feel important? Not good...
Yes. Paul tells us that we should strive to do our best in all that we do so that we may present Christ well to those around us.
That said, you have to be ambitious for the right things. Especially when it comes to money, it’s very easy for our ambitions to be corrupted and for our labors and works to become displeasing to God. We must never compromise on our Christian calling even when that conflicts with the world and its values. For example, I will never allow myself to skip church on Sunday for the sake of work. Does that mean I might upset some managers/partners and therefore not progress as quickly in my career? Perhaps, but I truly believe that God has called us to make Sundays a day to worship Him and I will not let my career ambitions get in the way of that.