Having the right ambition

I often need to stop and refocus. At least in my life it's easy to get busy doing and forget why I'm doing it. I often need to stop and refocus, see where the Lord is going, and check my bearings. This morning I got this quick course correction in 2 Corinthians 5,

9Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.

The key ambition- to be pleasing to God. I often read whole passages and don't stop for little verses like this, but here it is, in a short sentence....the prime ambition- to be pleasing to Him. I know, from my own life, that this is not the filter I use to make decisions, but I should. Will this choice please God? That one short question would change a lot of what we do and give us focus on the main thing. The main thing in life is to please God and bring him glory through those choices. But then, verse 10 continues with the reason why this should be my primary ambition,

10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Now there is some motivation! I don't choose this ambition of pleasing God in a vacuum. There's a good reason...I will give an account for my choices. I will get a report card from God when all is said and done. There is a reconciliation of accounts with God, not about sin...that has been dealt with, but an accounting about our choices to please ourselves rather than God. Who do you want to please? God will talk to us about those choices one day.

Ambition is good if it's the right goal. The goal of pleasing myself is short sighted and empty, but to make my ambition to please God? What a wonderful way to decide the course of my life. Will this please God? That simple question would change a lot about how we live, wouldn't it? I invite you to join me in making that the question that filters the choices of our lives. Why? Because God will one day ask us about those choices and there are rewards attached to the right choices. Why please God? Because there are eternal things going on here...not just what I want in this moment. Choose the right ambition, choose to ask and filter your life through this question, will this please God? It has eternal implications.