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"Dear God..." Kid's wisdom in cartoon format
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Ambition
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and
to work with your hands, just as we told you. . . (1 Thes. 4:11, NIV)
We all understand the importance of having ambition. In many ways our
ambitions define who and what we are. And, in our language, "unambitious"
is not a complimentary name. In our language that is the same as being
called lazy.
An ambition is an aspiration, desire or longing. If it is
our ambition to lead a quiet life--as the passage above teaches--we
want to lead a quiet life. It is our aspiration, our desire and our longing.
An ambition is more than this, however. Other associated ideas are:
goal, intent, purpose. While a Christian's ambitions are his desires, they
are also his goals. The Christian husband and father, for instance, not
only wants to work to provide for his family, he recognizes that it is his
duty to do so (1 Thes. 4:11, 1 Tim. 5:8). He wants and intends to provide
his families' needs.
Most people seem to have ambitions of one sort or another. The
ambitions of the worldly minded center on worldly success. The ambitions
of the spiritually minded center on pleasing God.
True ambitions require at least three things: determination, sacrifice
and focus.
Determination is both a conscience decision to do something and a
willingness to work for it. The one who aspires to win an Olympic medal
must be ambitious. The marathon runner does not stumble upon world renown.
He decides to become a good runner, then works hard to achieve his goal.
Daniel gives us a good example of determination:
But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and
he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.
(Daniel 1:8, NIV)
Early on he resolved (purposed, KJV) not to defile himself with the
unclean foods of the Gentile king. This was no absent-minded habit of his,
it was a clear-headed decision.
And Daniel did not stop there. He wanted to do what was right, but he
also put that desire into actions. He went to the chief official and
requested that he not defile himself. That was determination.
A true ambition requires sacrifice. A goal of any consequence puts
demands on you for time and effort at the expense of other things. Our
marathon runner sacrifices long hours in order to become good at his sport.
He gives up many tasty foods in order to keep extra ounces of fat off his
body. He makes many sacrifices in hopes of achieving his goal.
If your ambition is to follow Jesus, you must make sacrifices:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find
it." (Matthew 16:24-25, NIV)
Self-denial is a sacrifice, a willingness to give up any earthly
desires. One who denies himself is willing to lose his life to
gain life with Jesus.
A true ambition requires focus. For one thing, this means that other
activities cannot distract our attention from our goals. The Olympic
runner cannot let lesser activities keep him from his practice.
Those who long to be pleasing to God, cannot let earthly concerns
distract them from their ambition. Paul illustrated this:
No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs--he wants to
please his commanding officer. (2 Tim. 2:4, NIV)
If we are to please God, worldly cares must not distract us.
Furthermore, focus also means that one must select between many
competing goals. Some combinations are impossible: one ambition
interferes with the other. Our world-class runner cannot, at the same
time, focus on being a world-class tennis player. One simply does
not leave enough time and energy for the other.
And if we are to be pleasing to God, we cannot focus our attention on
worldly achievements. Jesus explained it this way:
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the
other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve both God and Money. (Matthew 6:24, NIV)
So we have shown that determination, sacrifice and focus characterize
ambition. The many complementing ambitions associated with pleasing God
have these characteristics. We will look at some of them.
Few people with children do not have some ambition regarding them.
Some of the more worldly parents want their children to be beauty
queens and so make this their ambition. They determine early on for
their children to be beautiful. They make this decision and begin
working to gain the renown for their child that they desire. They
sacrifice their own time and often their child's in-born humility
so that the child can walk the runway. They focus their own and
their child's attention on physical beauty and sacrifice many spiritual
goals so that the child can gain their objective.
Of course, the overwhelming and overriding objective of faithful
Christian parents is to raise their child to be faithful to God.
This too must start with a determination to do so. The parents must
make a conscious decision. They must expend a good deal of work.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the
training and instruction of the Lord. (Ephes. 6:4, NIV)
And the parent must make sacrifices. The parents should have the
desire and understand their duty to their child in this regard. God expects
parents to give up all earthly things for the spiritual good of their
child. Paul used this fact to illustrate a point to the Corinthian church:
Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden
to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all,
children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for
their children. So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and
expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less? (2 Cor.
12:14-15, NIV)
As his spiritual children, Paul recognized his duty to "spend and be
spent" (KJV) for the Corinthian's spiritual welfare. We must do the same
for our children.
We must sacrifice our precious time to spend time with our children,
teaching them God's will. The local congregation helps by providing
workbooks and Bible classes, but it is our job as parents to see that our
children learn what they need to know.
And parents need desperately to focus their attentions on this
ambition.
There are many parents, sadly, who will attest to the fact that
half-hearted attempts to raise up children to God simply do not work. God
spoke to us through Moses about how much attention, how much focus, parents
must give to the particularly important goal of raising faithful children:
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and
when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
(Deut. 6:6-7, NIV)
Saving souls should be an ambition of the faithful Christian. We can
see all the elements of determination, sacrifice and focus in this endeavor.
Jesus was consistent with his call for us to get to work saving souls:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to
obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to
the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20, NIV)
The New Testament also stresses the sacrificial attitude we must have
in our endeavor to save souls:
Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone,
to win as many as possible. . . I have become all things to all men so that
by all possible means I might save some. (1 Cor. 9:19-22, NIV)
Furthermore, earthly cares should not distract us from this effort.
The early life of John Mark stands out as a negative example of this (Acts
15:36-40). He started out on the work of preaching and then abandoned
Barnabus and Paul when they were far from finished. This fickleness
ultimately caused strife between Barnabus and Paul and they parted company
(Acts 15:37-39).
Are you ambitious in your service to God?
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