Ambition Is A Gift From God
by Dan Jones, M.D.
Philippians 2:3-8
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Paul was writing about a difficult topic here. Ambition is a driving force in some people’s lives. When I began medical school, I encountered large numbers of very ambitious people for the first time in my life. I had been exposed in smaller doses, but so many of my classmates and many of the faculty were highly ambitious people.
In our society, ambition is usually seen as a negative trait. But Paul makes a careful distinction in this passage. He notes we should “do nothing out of selfish ambition”. If there is selfish ambition, does that mean there can be ambition that is not selfish? Could ambition be a positive force in one’s life – a gift from God? I think yes.
The Bible is full of examples of very ambitious people: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jabez (“enlarge my territory”), Peter, James and John, and Paul. Paul’s selfless ambition allowed him to drive on to many cities proclaiming the Gospel. His ambition to preach the word to those who had not heard it was a gift from God. And it drove him to accomplish what a man with less ambition could not have accomplished.
One of the most ambitious men I have ever known was plastic surgeon, Victor Grishkevich. You must be thinking if he was a plastic surgeon, his ambition must have been of the selfish variety. But this plastic surgeon, this great man of God, devoted his life to the care of children with serious burns. He was driven to long hours of research to discover new techniques to save more lives and improve the quality of life. God used his large ambition for Kingdom purposes.
Lord, thank you for the gift of ambition. Help me to use it for your Kingdom’s work.
Dan Jones, M.D., MACP, FAHA, a board-certified Internist, a former medical missionary to Korea, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chancellor of the University of Mississippi until 2015. Dr. Dan Jones is a member of CMDA.
Dr. Jones welcomes any comments or questions about what he has written and can be reached at - djones@umc.edu
Rounds with the Master, Spiritual Pearls from the Great Physician Devotionals are released every Monday and Thursday.
Photo by John Gibbons on Unsplash
