Mark 10:43 “. . . whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.”
Two kinds of ambition appear in this passage from Mark. One kind of ambition is holy; the word holy means separate. Holy ambition takes a different path through life than the typical ambition that we celebrate in sports and business and other competitive endeavors. Both kinds of ambition have their place. Jesus occasionally pointed to the typical kind of ambition as a picture of worldly cunning. However, Jesus called his disciples to follow holy ambition if they wanted to be great in his kingdom. (Verse 43)
How like God in his grace to create holy ambition, a path to greatness, which comes to a person not by being the most gifted or hardest working or luckiest. In God’s kingdom everyone has the potential to be first regardless of their talent, opportunity, education, hard work or luck. The path to greatness is open to all.
Worldly ambition creates stress and often makes people angry with each other. (verse 41) Holy ambition is graceful, at peace and patient. There is no pushing or struggling to be last in line, and when one least expects it, one discovers that God has chosen to give his rewards beginning at the back of the line. (See the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, Matthew 20).
Jesus himself is the model of holy ambition. He told his disciples, “. . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (verse 43) The early believers sang a hymn about Jesus which Paul placed in his letter to the church at Philippi.
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be
used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing;
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
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