On the whole, ambition has much about it that is dangerous, corrupting, selfish and sinful. But wanting something is a very important Christian virtue. It is the corruption of desire and ambition that is the problem, not desire and ambition in themselves.
If sacrifice is to make any sense, if laying a thing down in honour and praise of God actually means anything, there must be desire and ambition at the start. If what we give away or give up is actually gift, and expresses self-denial in love for another, then there must be desire or ambition to begin. A gift that means nothing to us to give is no act of love.
Positively, ambition and desire lie at the heart of loving the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Passivity, nonchalance, indifference are hardly the ideas that come to mind with that command! Instead there is the anticipation that the whole of life is seen as the arena in which we seek to glorify and praise Him as largely as we can. Great ambition!—to make God's glory as clearly seen as possible. This isn't necessarily best done by a false humility that glories in our being "nothing". Rather, the glory of God is a man or a woman fully alive!
Paul urged Timothy with a motto for life, one that he wanted Timothy to pass on to the congregation in his care. "This is a trustworthy saying: whoever desires to be an overseer desires a noble work." The saying is encouraging and cautionary. The desiring that Paul speaks of is eager, keen, longing. The desiring to be an overseer (Gk: episkopos) is not for a position but a work. Sinful ambition seeks position; godly ambition seeks to be as useful to God and His people as possible.
[Here is some teaching I recently gave on this topic.]
Thursday, August 18, 2011
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