Why is ambition a sin

A communion grounded in an unimaginable love. A love made manifest upon the cross. The choice is before us this day. Follow Jesus to peace.

Or construct a monstrous, anti-Eucharistic communion of jealous ambition. Timothy P. Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe now. Send feedback to us at oursunvis osv. Customer Service. Renew Your Subscription. Pay Your Bill. Change of Address. New Subscription. Gift Subscription. Digital Subscriber Sign In. Bulk Subscription. Newsletter Signup.

Permission Guidelines. Writer Guidelines. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus rendered his life to us. He yielded it, and surrendered it, on the cross so that we could have forgiveness of our past sins present and future ones too! But in that sense, Jesus was also ambitious. If I am looking for status, prestige, or privilege, than my ambition is self-serving.

Over the gates of the kingdom of Christ these words are written, "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be abased. Selfishness is the chief of those elements in ambition which constitute its sinfulness. Hence we may test ambition, by asking ourselves how we regard our competitors. If a man envies others; if, without compunction, he will crush another to the wall that he may pass him by; if he refuses to help another in sore straits, who is within his reach, on the ground that every man is for himself; then his ambition is a sin.

This is more clearly revealed by our Lord than by the old dispensation. He has taught us not only to love our neighbours, but our competitors, and even our foes.

He has urged us to "bear one another's burdens," to deny ourselves, and take up our cross to follow Him. The Christian Church has a sacrifice for its basis, and a cross for its banner.

Adonijah repeated his brother's offence. He knew how that bright young life had closed in darkness, when Absalom died helpless and unpitied by the hand of Joab. He had often seen his father sitting looking at himself with a far off look in his eyes, as if he still were saying, "O, Absalom, would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! History is crowded with illustrations of the fact that men who have lived as Adonijah did have found their honours unsatisfying, and have died in disappointment and despair.

Alexander, who conquered the world, died, after setting fire to a city, in a scene of awful debauchery. Hannibal, who at one time could fill three bushels with the gold rings of fallen knights, died by poison, administered by his own hand, unwept in a foreign land. Caesar, who conquered eight hundred cities, fell stabbed to the heart by his friends, in the place of his noblest triumph.

Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe, died a heart broken captive. It has been writ large, in letters of blood, so that he who runs may read, "the expectation of the wicked shall be cut off! Parallel Verses KJV: Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him.