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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.
What a
tale of two leaders that we have in 1 Chronicles 19. The first thing that we hear is that the king
of the Ammonites dies. David, knowing
his own kingdom and his calling as king, sends an emissary of peace. He wants to try and make sure that the new
king realizes that David isn’t looking to take advantage of the change in
leadership. David doesn’t seek to extend
his control over a land to which he isn’t called. His ambition is not to claim everything for
himself and keep the people around him down.
His ambition is to rule well where God has called him to rule.
On the
other hand, we have this new young king of the Ammonites. He sees David’s emissary of peace as an
opportunity to assert himself. He embarrasses
the emissary and then comes to war against David. He tries to buy mercenary help in the
Syrians. He makes rash and impulsive
moves as his ambition causes him to overextend.
Before all the dust settles, he sues David for peace and ends up
becoming a vassal of David’s. The young
brash king’s ambition leads him into a place that David hadn’t even intended to
put him.
When we look at this, we can truly see the need for mentoring in
our life. When we are young, we tend to
be impulsive. When we are young, we
think we are invincible. When we are
young, our ambition often gets the better of us unless we have mentors to help
reign it in and make sure that our decisions are sound and rooted in godliness.
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