Is Jesus against Ambition?
Here's the sermon link from Sunday. If you were there you know that Jesus is not against ambition. It depends on what you are ambitious for. The problem is that in our world, selfish ambition is the rule. We are ambitious for fame and riches. We are narcissistic and it's leading us to more and more extreme behaviors in order to get attention.
We had some wonderful things happen on Sunday.
* We hosted about 15 kids from Elisha Children's Home in Nongbualampoo Province. And we raised over 100,000 baht for them. (That's $3333 US Dollars for my American friends.) In addition to hearing their stories and praying with and for them. We took them to Museum of Siam. Thanks to the Museum for letting the group in free. We didn't anticipate that! I think the highlight for the kids was a last minute decision to ride the BTS to get there!
* One of the stories we heard was of a young girl whose mother abandoned the family. The father was in despair at what to do and how to look after her and her brother. So he decided to commit suicide. But he didn't want to leave her, so he tried to poison her before killing himself. He failed. Thank God. And now she is a beautiful 8 year old.
* Now - I want to be really clear about this. We (Intl Church) does not do any of this stuff because we are particularly wonderful people. We do it for the glory of Jesus Christ - who has redeemed us, loves us and called us to love others.
* It really does sadden me to see Christians love their neighbors and when asked "why?" never mention Jesus. I understand that some folks don't want to hear about Jesus. I also understand that mentioning him will close some doors. But the reason why is that it often seems like the only people doing anything in Jesus' name are the nutters! And so we make him infamous rather than famous and that is a tragedy.
Grace and peace.
We had some wonderful things happen on Sunday.
* We hosted about 15 kids from Elisha Children's Home in Nongbualampoo Province. And we raised over 100,000 baht for them. (That's $3333 US Dollars for my American friends.) In addition to hearing their stories and praying with and for them. We took them to Museum of Siam. Thanks to the Museum for letting the group in free. We didn't anticipate that! I think the highlight for the kids was a last minute decision to ride the BTS to get there!
* One of the stories we heard was of a young girl whose mother abandoned the family. The father was in despair at what to do and how to look after her and her brother. So he decided to commit suicide. But he didn't want to leave her, so he tried to poison her before killing himself. He failed. Thank God. And now she is a beautiful 8 year old.
* Now - I want to be really clear about this. We (Intl Church) does not do any of this stuff because we are particularly wonderful people. We do it for the glory of Jesus Christ - who has redeemed us, loves us and called us to love others.
* It really does sadden me to see Christians love their neighbors and when asked "why?" never mention Jesus. I understand that some folks don't want to hear about Jesus. I also understand that mentioning him will close some doors. But the reason why is that it often seems like the only people doing anything in Jesus' name are the nutters! And so we make him infamous rather than famous and that is a tragedy.
Grace and peace.
