Year 4, Day 353: 1 Kings 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition

• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.

It seems like I’m talking more about ambition, appetite, and approval more and more lately.  But given where we are in God’s Word, this really makes sense.  The period of the Kings is largely about the downfall of the kingdom.  It is about the sinfulness of the leaders of the Hebrew people.  It is about decline.  It makes sense that we’ll see ambition, appetite, and approval all over these pages.

Let’s look at Rehoboam.  Rehoboam is all about ambition.  He wants a greater kingdom than Solomon.  He wants a greater reputation than Solomon.  He doesn’t want to settle for less, he wants to reach for more.  He challenges the leaders of the people who come before him.  He tells them that he plans on being a hard king that asks for much.  He overreaches in his ambition.  The people rebel.  Rather than a modest leader of a united kingdom of God’s people, Rehoboam is remembered as the cruel leader under whom the kingdom becomes cut in two.  Misplaced ambition seldom gets us anywhere good.

Then we get a glance at Jeroboam.  He came back with decent intentions.  He came back to lead the people of the northern 10 tribes when it was suspected that Rehoboam was going to be a tough task-master.  But Jeroboam also displays ambition.  He wants to be seen as a legitimate leader, not an alternate.  So in his ambition, he sets up places to worship so that the people don’t have to go to Jerusalem, which was in Rehoboam’s territory.  Because Rehoboam seeks after his own place, name, and power he puts himself between the people and true worship of God.  Here we see that when we seek after our own ambition we often find ourselves at odds with God.

Ambition is a dangerous thing.  We should desperately want what God wants for us.  But when we overreach and start wanting the lust of our own hearts, things go wrong for us.  As we see in both Rehoboam and Jeroboam, ambition that is pushed beyond the godly leads into sin, corruption, and offense with God.

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