Are You Giving Up Your Life For Matchsticks

November, 2003

by: Walt Bertelsen

Ambition is simply a strong or eager desire to accomplish something. Ambition, in and of itself, is not right or wrong. The Scriptures are full of examples of godly people with godly ambitions. They also warn us of what ambition leads to, apart from God.

If you attended our last Men's Breakfast and heard Dave Hintz teach on the leader's ambition, you learned from the Book of Ecclesiastes about four wrong ambitions that Solomon, the writer, had pursued: Wisdom (the worldly kind, not God's); Worldly pleasure; Work (success); Wealth (riches).

Solomon, when he reached the end of his survey, concluded that it was all “vanity” (pointless, meaningless, empty) to chase after these things (Ecclesiastes 12:8) — it was nothing but chasing after the wind. But Solomon didn't stop there. He finished by stating the end of the matter, the only right ambition for the Christian man: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

If fearing God and keeping His commands is to be our ambition — that is to say, the eager, strong, driving desire to accomplish what He wants — then we should be always striving to make His ambitions our ambitions. The fear of God is the beginning of all true wisdom. We are to let Him who made us renew our thinking so that we can recognize His will and His command (Rom. 12:1,2).

Unfortunately, many of us are driven by small ambitions. Dave Hintz related the typical corporate–think mentality, giving as example those who would do their utmost to make a certain match company the best in the land. These people are giving themselves for matchsticks — which will burn in the end.

I would like to ask you men: What are you giving yourself for? Paul told us: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor 11:1). Our Lord Jesus Himself said that His food — what kept Him going, what drove Him — was to do God's will and accomplish His work (Jn 4:34). Paul, in like manner, counted his own life of no value or precious to himself, just so he could finish what Christ gave him to do (Acts 20:24), and made it his ambition to always be pleasing to Christ, no matter where he was or what he was doing (2 Cor 5:9).

Later on, Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians that he counted “everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord … that I may gain Christ … that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death…” (Phil 3:7-11). And the writer to the Hebrews (Heb 12:1,2) encouraged us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, …”

Are you living for matchsticks? I leave you with this response from one man who gave up small ambitions. A young Christian heard a Bible teacher say, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who is totally surrendered to Him.” The young man said to himself, “I want to be that man.” That young man was Dwight L. Moody.