We're all glory addicts

Currently, I am reading through "Rescuing Ambition" by Dave Harvey, a book addressing our need to unshackle ambition from our own foolish misconceptions about humility.  Of course, Harvey is the first to admit that humble ambition sounds a lot like an oxymoron, but by carefully walking readers through the Biblical truth behind Godly ambition, I can't help but get incredibly excited about the concept - and mind you, I'm only halfway through the book.

This first half serves to reveal the "inner wiring" carefully formed in us by our Creator.  You see, He created us for His glory; almost everything we do can be traced back to this rather simple fact.  Even before we were saved by Christ's death on the Cross, we were consumed with ambition for self-glory.  This was not God's intention when He created us of course; we were created by God, for God.  But after the Fall, our ambition for God's glory became sorely misplaced and corrupted.  The result was a people obsessed with the self, and prideful ambition was born.  You could say we became like the 300 Spartans whose desire for glory lead them to bulk up their bodies to insane proportions, learning incredible fighting techniques and strategies, taking on the largest army the world has ever seen, and for what? Glory? No, all that they earned was death.

Then, Christ came and changed everything.  His redeeming death on the Cross granted us freedom from our old selfish desires.  There was no longer anything holding us back from the undeniable glory that is in the Lord our God.  So, how did we so easily give in to the lie that we are supposed to get rid of all ambition, humbly following God without actually doing anything for Him?

We're all glory addicts.  We were made to pursue God's limitless glory, and there is no denying that.  So let's start actually pursuing Him!  Don't let ambition rot in the prison you've built around it; actively chase after God, and He'll bring that prison crashing down.

Nick Natoli