“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though He was God He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8 NLT)
Are you ambitious? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary ambition means: “eager desire for success, honor, or power.” There are some who frown on any ambition, but that seems counterintuitive to me. I want to be hugely successful in honoring Jesus and allowing His powerful life and love to flow in and through me to His fame, don’t you?
And, yes, of course, ambition is typically “me-focused,” and that’s the point: Who are you seeking to exalt in and through your ambition? If it’s only you, you are among all people most to be pitied. Why? It’s like a worm ambitiously seeking to be a human being. No matter what the worm does, thinks (can worms think? 😊) or desires it will never become a human being.
Vance K. Jackson wrote: “Many collapse under the weight and pressure of self-promotion and self-exaltation. But when God promotes, His promotion is sustainable.” Ambition is actually a gift of God, but like so many gifts God provides, we too often distort it and seek to make it beneficial simply to ourselves. The Apostle Paul referred to people like this in Philippians 1:17 when he wrote: “Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me.”
Think about that for a minute. Paul’s not speaking of those who are lost, who are enemies of God and the Church, he’s talking about people who bear the name of the Savior, who are speaking boldly the claims of Christ, yet are doing these wonderful things not for God’s glory and honor, but their own.
Paul didn’t say to not be ambitious, he simply pointed out that we need to check our motives when we do anything, even for the cause of Christ. Jesus’ goal was essentially to forget Himself, to nullify benefit for Himself in preference that everything He said and did, including the person He was becoming as God’s Son on earth – EVERYTHING would be to His Father’s honor and glory.
His ambitious goal was to make the Father known – to enable the invisible Spirit of the Father to become visible in and through His life. He wanted anyone who looked at Him to see the Father. And the wonderful thing about that is, He fulfilled His goal perfectly, so much so, that He passed on to us the honor and privilege of carrying on His legacy in and through our lives.
Jesus said in John 5:30: “I can do nothing on My own. I judge as God tells Me. Therefore, My judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent Me, not My own will.” Paul emphasizes that Jesus has passed the baton of submission to the Father’s will to us when he wrote in Romans 12:1: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living sacrifice – the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him.”
So, what’s the bottom line? Essentially this – our life as a Jesus follower is not our own, it’s been bought and paid for by the blood of our Savior; therefore, to live our life as if it were our own, being driven or motivated by selfish ambition is on many levels the greatest denial of Jesus we can make with our life.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 