Year 6, Day 155: Ezekiel 29

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.

Here is another chapter where God places little value on human ambition and great value on obeying Him.  In truth, I have a feeling I’ll be focusing on ambition a lot in the rest of this year as we’ll be looking at many of the books of the prophets in the Old Testament.  One of the primary concerns of the prophets is that the people follow the desires of their own hearts instead of listening to God.

Look at the condemnation laid out at the feet of Egypt.  They thought themselves to be mighty.  They thought themselves to be a staff that Judah could rely upon in their time of need.  They thought themselves to be the masters of the Nile and all that is in it.  They had a high and arrogant opinion of themselves.

In their arrogance, God would bring them down and judge them.  As they exposed their ambition, they also exposed their weakness.  This is the way of the arrogant.  When we dream and pursue a dream that is not of God, we overextend ourselves and do not have the internal or external resources to support the ambition.

Furthermore, did you notice a distinct difference in the way that God spoke to Ezekiel about Pharaoh ad Egypt verses the way that He spoke about Tyre and its king?  In this chapter, we have no complimentary language.  God lays out judgment and condemnation against Egypt and its Pharaoh.  Even if we look to the next several chapters we find that God says more complimentary things about the other nations than He says about Egypt.  I think that distinction is really important to remember.  God knows that we will all make mistakes in our ambitious humanity.  God can forgive mistakes.  But when we intentionally lead people away from reliance upon Him because of our ambition, He takes that personally.

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