Chip Ingram’s Book, Holy Ambition is an inspiring book (2010), especially for pastors and ministry leaders.
Too often, our focus on faith, trust, and risk in ministry is primarily in the rearview mirror. We live on what God has done instead of radically trusting what he will still do in the future if we are focused on him.
In the book, Chip shares a couple of stories of people starting well in the Bible, but then resting on success and turning inward to “protect” it at all costs. If we could only continue to trust God, with risk-taking faith, realizing the success is all his to begin with.
Do you know what often happens when we experience success while walking in risk-taking faith and obedience to God? Well, it usually goes one of two ways: 1) we take it for granted and become arrogant or 2) we forget the process God used and settle into a comfort zone.
As the author goes on to say (in one of the sad lines in the book), “Survival tactics replace holy ambition. We become respectable inside Christian circles and gradually come to resist the idea that faith has anything to do with risk.”
No matter where we are in this life’s Christian walk, we can’t avoid risks! We must forge ahead, remembering that God uses this process and these times to bring about amazing things.
If we truly want to turn God-shaped dreams into reality, we must be willing to move forward in faith – growing it by doing things that we could never do on our own.
I think you can read this book free on Kindle here.