Scripture:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:7-14
Devotional Thought:
Paul is one of the most ambitious people in the New Testament. He planted churches across the known world, wrote much of the New Testament, and pushed himself with an intensity that is almost exhausting to read about. But his ambition is not ambition-driven success as we’ve been describing it — it is ambition that has been thoroughly redeemed by encounter with Jesus.
In Philippians 3, Paul catalogs his credentials — the things he could have leveraged for success by the old metric: tribe, pedigree, zeal, religious achievement. And then: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” He’s not saying those things were worthless. He’s saying they’ve been reordered. Everything that was building his resume now belongs to a different story.
What Paul presses toward instead is knowing Christ — “the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings.” This is his ambition now. Not position, not platform, not recognition — but the relentless pursuit of deeper union with Jesus. And from that center, his ambition is limitless: preaching where Christ has not been named, strengthening churches, finishing the race.
In 1 Corinthians 9, he describes this as running to win. He is not meandering. He is not coasting. He disciplines his body, he runs with purpose. But the prize he is running toward is not what the world would recognize as success.
Redeemed ambition looks like this: it is intense, focused, and costly — but its energy flows from love rather than fear, from gratitude rather than insecurity. It is ambitious for God’s glory rather than its own. It is Paul, pressing on. It is Daniel, praying at his open window. It is the life that has been surrendered to a worthy King and run with everything it has.
Reflection Questions:
1. What would it look like for your ambition to be “redeemed” — to run with the same intensity but toward a fundamentally different prize?
2. What are the “gains” in your life — the credentials, achievements, or identities — that you need to reckon as “loss” compared to knowing Christ?
Application:
Write a personal mission statement that reflects redeemed ambition: not what you want to achieve for yourself, but what you sense God calling you to pursue for His glory. Keep it short, honest, and specific.