How Ambition Makes Me a Bad Friend

I have this issue with ambition that I regularly struggle with. You see, I want to go places, do things, live my life! So in an effort to get there I ignore the here. I look to the future, a thing that the world says I must do, but by doing I so largely ignore the present.

This is known as unhealthy ambition. And it makes me a very bad friend and son to my folks. This is because it gets me to always work towards the goal. For me, the goal is to become a full time novelist. So I’m working at my writing career from all angles to get there, so that one day I’ll “have the time to spend with those I love.”

The problem is that that time will never come. I mean, I know one day I’ll be a full time novelist, but what makes me think I’ll then have the time to spend with those I love? I have to keep my career going then.

Most of us work our lives away so we can enjoy our retirement. But when our retirement comes it’s short lived because our health, and our relationships, suffered so much in the process.

What we really all want is joy, peace, love and a bit of adventure. At least that’s how it is for me. And I can have that all pretty easily by just looking for it in the right place.

For the Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure hidden in a field. God is the source of real joy. That’s where I need to go looking for it. But why do I get sidetracked so easily, and so miss the very thing I’m looking for?

Rather I keep chasing after fleeting dreams which, even though they may be good in themselves, are tainted by this unhealthy ambition to get me there.

I’m know my experience is not unique. If you’re like me, let’s look to God as the source of our joy and hope and let our ultimate ambition be to truly know Him.

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Love is WAR

(Pic found at this guy’s website.)

Jesus’ commandment that we should “Love one another” is an act of war.

It’s an act of war against the devil and the philosophies and attitudes of this world. Every time we obey this command and the others of Jesus, we wage war against these things. We implement the victory Jesus got for us on the cross into this world and so usher in a new Kingdom and reign.

Our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers. Against every thought that comes up against God. If our war is not against flesh and blood, we don’t take up guns and shoot each other. Rather, we work to capture the hearts of people through our relationships, our speech, our conduct, our deeds. And these things in themselves also wage war against the devil and wicked philosophies because our relationships, speech, conduct and deeds are decidedly anti-devil and anti wicked philosophies and ideas. Everything we do is an act of WAR. We are not on the defensive, we’re on the offensive.

Jesus has gotten the victory over all these things and came to destroy the devil’s works. (1 John 3:8.) Christians are to implement this victory into our world, our time, our age.

Let’s go and wage war today.

All Those Sins are Washed Away

One of the hardest things to believe in Christianity is that, quite simply, all our sins are forgiven and washed away through simply asking God to forgive us.

We complicate this endlessly. But the Bible is emphatic — our sins are washed away by the blood of the Lamb.

If they are washed away when you become a Christian, they are washed away as you live as a Christian.

Listen to this: THEY ARE WASHED AWAY. If you sin and sin and sin and sin constantly, doing the same thing, these are WASHED AWAY by the Blood of the Lamb. You can sin now and ask for forgiveness and then sin in the next moment and then ask for forgiveness. God doesn’t count your sins, He washes them away. We count them. He doesn’t. When God looks at you He sees you as righteous because you are in Christ.

Your sins are washed away. Washed away, washed away, washed away.

It’s so hard to really believe it, isn’t it? We want to constantly add conditions. Are you sorry enough for your sins? Are you determined to stop doing them? Did you repent properly? Did you do all the acts of penance correctly?

The promise is that Jesus washes away our sins if we ask. It’s really simple. When I first decided to believe in Christ I asked God to forgive me of my sins and he did so. I didn’t have to worry about all this other stuff. I simply repented and that was that. Why should I have to worry about it now?

His mercies are new each morning. His steadfast love never fails. (Lamentations 3:22, 23.)