Christian Endeavor

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR.

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Topic For the Week Beginning Jan. 12. Comment by Rev. S. H. Doyle.

TOPIC.—The peril and the power of ambition.—Luke ii, 52; Duet. viii, 11-20.

Ambition is an inordinate and eager desire of preferment, honor, superiority or power. The peril and the power of ambition are illustrated in the lives of many of the worlds most illustrious men. The power of their ambition has been so great that, regardless of the just rights of others, regardless of the laws of God, they have sought only to accomplish their purposes, and when position and power have been attained God has been forgotten and no claims that even He has had upon them have been considered. 

In the first Scriptural reference we have pointed out to us a laudable ambition and the gracious results of it. We are told that Jesus grew in favor with God and man. Christ was in the true sense ambition. He was filled with an inordinate desire to do the will of God. We cannot be filled with too much of this kind of ambition. Paul also had a worthy ambition. He expressed it when he said, "We labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of Him." We cannot be filled with too strong a desire to serve God and to so labor that we may be accepted of Him. This should be the one ambition of our lives, and if we make it that we will not only grow in favor with God, but also with man, as Jesus did. 

In the second reference there is a solemn warning against forgetting God in the time of prosperity. The children of Israel would not but see the hand of God in their guidance and direction in the wilderness, but in the land of Canaan it would be different. There the blessings of prosperity and wealthy would come from God through second causes, and there might be a temptation in the pride of their hearts for them to say, "My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth." this is the great danger of prosperity—that it may make us proud and ambitious, that we will take all the credit to ourselves and forget that we are indebted to God for all things. 

False ambition always leads to destruction. God solemnly warns us against it. It has ruined some of the world's greatest men, and is supposed to have caused the downfall of the angels who fell from heaven. True ambition—a burning desire to serve God—receives His blessing and favor and the favor and confidence of men. Let us then "labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of Him."

Bible Readings.—Gen. xi, 1-9; I Kings i, 5-53; Ps. xviii, 27; Prov. xvii, 19; xxix, 23; Isa. xiv, 12-20; Jer. li, 49-53; Ezek. xxxo, 10-12; Math. xviii, 1-3; xx, 20-28; xxiii, 1-12; Luke xiv, 8-11; xxii, 24-26; Rom. xii, 10; Phil. ii, 3-12; II Thess. ii, 1-4; Jas. iv, 5-10; I Pet. v, 5, 6; III John ix.