Christianity typically does not require leaving every aspect of your former life behind. For instance, it does not advocate your relocating in a remote compound in Montana—as appealing as that might sound at times! However, becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ does demand abandoning any ambitions or positions that create conflict with Christ. When the apostle Paul wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians, he explained his concern for their souls: “For I fear lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish; lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults” (2 Cor. 12:20). He feared that they were clinging to the world’s ambitions instead of adopting God’s as their own. Whether giving up a secular position as Moses did (Heb. 11:24-25) or a spiritual position as the apostle Paul did (Phil. 3:4-8), Christians must let go of the ambitions held in high esteem in the world and instead aspire to pleasing God (1 The. 4:1).
Following Jesus therefore means giving up personal agendas and individual priorities to seek the whole of God’s cause and God’s will. Paul advised the congregation in Philippi, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4). Jesus’ disciples must cheerfully submit the ambitions they learned from worldly experience to follow the ambitions set before them from heavenly experience. Too easily we follow the world’s ambition for a church because we are out of touch with God’s ambition for us. We can then substitute the world’s ambitions for the church for God’s—failing to realize it at the time because we have lost the proper focus. We must stop reacting only to the needs the world sees and instead begin acting because of the needs God sees, because Jesus lived in such a manner as this (Lk. 19:10).
Therefore, discipleship demands personal action—not personal ambition. It demands that disciples not only follow God’s will but adopt God’s will as their own through faith to the point where it becomes who they are. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (Jas. 2:14- 18). Christians can get caught up in the trap of worldly ambition, trying to do big things on a grandiose scale so that all the world will notice. Instead, they need to start doing the right things on an individual scale so that the people they know and love notice.
Moses had a good life in Midian when he saw the burning bush. He gave a lot of personal excuses trying to stay right where he had been. But when he dropped his own selfish ambitions and instead took up God’s ambition, he achieved greatness through meekness (Num. 12:3). Following Jesus offers that same possibility today
-Kevin W. Rhodes
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