Ambition isn’t a dirty word in Scripture.
Joseph dreamed of ruling before he ever ruled Egypt.
David prepared for kingship years before wearing the crown.
Paul pursued excellence in ministry with the same intensity he’d once pursued Christians to imprison them.
Priscilla and Aquila built a thriving business while advancing the gospel.
These were ambitious people whom God used powerfully.
Yet Jesus asked the most haunting question in all of Scripture directly to ambitious people: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
That question sits uncomfortably in Christian culture that simultaneously celebrates entrepreneurial success stories and warns against “worldly ambition.”
We want to achieve great things for God’s glory while avoiding the soul-destroying corruption that comes from pursuing greatness for self-glory.
The line between godly ambition and soul-destroying ambition exists.
And Jesus defined it clearly in Mark 8:36.
Understanding where that line is determines whether your success builds God’s kingdom or destroys your soul.
Understanding Jesus’s Question in Mark 8:36
Mark 8:36, New International Version (NIV)
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
Jesus spoke these words immediately after predicting His own death and rebuking Peter for trying to stop Him from going to the cross.
The context matters tremendously.
Peter wanted Jesus to pursue earthly success and avoid suffering. Jesus was explaining that His mission required sacrifice, not self-promotion.
Then He turned to the crowd and His disciples with this penetrating question.
The Greek word for “gain” is “kerdainō,” meaning to profit, to acquire, to win.
It’s a business term.
Jesus is using commercial language deliberately to address ambitious people pursuing success.
The word for “forfeit” is “zēmioō,” meaning to suffer loss, to be punished, to experience damage.
It’s the opposite of gain.
You acquire the world but lose your soul in the transaction.
According to New Testament scholar William Lane’s commentary on Mark, Jesus is exposing the terrible exchange rate: trading your eternal soul for temporary worldly success is the worst business deal possible, regardless of how much you gain.
What “The World” Represents
When Jesus says “the whole world,” He’s not talking about planet Earth.
He’s talking about the world’s system of values, achievements, and rewards.
1 John 2:16, English Standard Version (ESV) defines what constitutes “the world”:
“For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
Gaining the world means acquiring everything the world offers and values: wealth, power, fame, status, influence, pleasure, security, recognition, comfort, success by worldly standards.
None of these things are inherently evil.
Money can fund ministry.
Influence can advance the gospel.
Success can provide platforms for truth.
Recognition can open doors for kingdom work.
The problem isn’t possessing these things. The problem is what you sacrifice to get them and what they do to your soul once you have them.
The World’s Definition of Success
The world measures success through accumulation and comparison.
How much you have versus how much others have. How high you’ve climbed versus how high others have climbed.
According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by psychologists Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan, people who organize their lives around financial success, image, and popularity report lower psychological well-being, more anxiety and depression, and poorer relationships than those organized around intrinsic values like personal growth and community contribution.
The world’s success metrics actively harm human flourishing, yet we pursue them relentlessly.
The World’s Methods for Achieving Success
The world achieves success through whatever works: manipulation, compromise, exploitation, deception, ruthlessness. The end justifies the means.
Climb over people to get ahead. Compromise integrity when necessary. Sacrifice relationships for advancement. Present carefully curated images that hide reality. Do whatever it takes to win.
Christians pursuing worldly success while using worldly methods are forfeiting their souls incrementally, one compromised decision at a time.
What It Means to Forfeit Your Soul
The soul isn’t a separate spiritual component you possess.
In biblical thinking, the soul is you, your essential self, your identity, your personhood.
To forfeit your soul means to lose yourself.
Not lose your salvation necessarily, though that’s possible.
Lose who God created you to be. Lose your integrity. Lose your character. Lose the image of God you were meant to reflect.
How Soul Forfeiture Happens
Soul forfeiture rarely happens dramatically.
It happens gradually through accumulated compromises that seem minor individually but destroy you collectively.
You tell one lie to secure a deal.
You compromise one ethical boundary to advance your career.
You neglect your family for one more business opportunity.
You present one curated image on social media that doesn’t match reality.
You make one decision based on what benefits you rather than what honors God.
Each compromise alone seems manageable.
But together? They erode your soul until you wake up one day successful by the world’s standards and unrecognizable to yourself.
Theologian Dallas Willard describes this process in his book Renovation of the Heart: “The greatest danger to the Christian life today is not the loss of heaven, but the loss of our own souls while still on earth and while still ‘going to church.'”
The Signs You’re Forfeiting Your Soul
Christian counselor Larry Crabb identifies several indicators that worldly success is costing you your soul:
You’re succeeding professionally while your closest relationships deteriorate.
You have impressive achievements while losing the ability to enjoy them.
You present a public image increasingly distant from private reality.
You justify behavior you once condemned as necessary for success.
You’ve stopped “seeking” God’s direction and started “informing” Him of your plans. Read that part again.
These aren’t minor character flaws to manage. They’re warning signs that worldly success is destroying your soul.
The Difference Between Godly and Worldly Ambition
Scripture doesn’t condemn all ambition. It distinguishes between ambition that serves God’s purposes and ambition that serves self.
Godly Ambition: Serving God’s Kingdom
Colossians 3:23, Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
“Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people.”
Godly ambition pursues excellence to glorify God and serve others.
Success is defined by faithfulness to God’s calling, not comparison to others’ achievements.
Paul demonstrated godly ambition when he wrote in Romans 15:20 that he made it his ambition to preach the gospel where Christ wasn’t known.
That’s ambitious. It’s also focused on kingdom advancement, not self-promotion.
According to Os Guinness in his book The Call, godly ambition asks: “What has God called me to do?” rather than “What will make me successful by the world’s standards?”
Worldly Ambition: Serving Self
James 3:14-16, New King James Version (NKJV)
“But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”
Worldly ambition pursues success to elevate self, impress others, and accumulate for personal benefit.
It’s driven by comparison, competition, and the need to prove worth through achievement.
James connects self-seeking ambition directly to demonic wisdom.
That’s strong language indicating how seriously God takes ambition that serves self rather than His kingdom.
The Diagnostic Questions
Ask yourself these questions to distinguish which type of ambition drives you:
Would you still pursue this goal if no one ever knew about it or credited you for it? If the answer is no, your ambition is about recognition, not calling.
Would you be content if God used someone else to accomplish what you’re working toward? If the answer is no, your ambition is about personal glory, not kingdom advancement.
Are you willing to succeed slowly through integrity or only quickly through compromise? If integrity feels like an obstacle rather than a requirement, your ambition has become worldly.
Do your ambitious pursuits strengthen or strain your relationship with God and the people He’s given you? If they consistently damage relationships, your ambition is costing you your soul.
How Jesus Modeled Ambition Without Soul Loss
Jesus was deeply ambitious.
He came to accomplish the most significant mission in human history: reconciling humanity to God through His death and resurrection.
Yet He never forfeited His soul pursuing that mission.
His example shows how to succeed at what matters most without losing yourself.
He Defined Success by the Father’s Will
John 4:34, New Living Translation (NLT)
“Then Jesus explained: ‘My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.'”
Jesus measured success by obedience to the Father, not by worldly metrics of achievement.
When crowds wanted to make Him king by force, He withdrew.
When everyone was looking for Him, He moved to the next town because that’s what the Father directed.
He succeeded at what mattered while refusing to pursue what the world defined as success.
He Prioritized Relationship Over Achievement
Jesus regularly withdrew from ministry demands to pray.
He invested deeply in twelve disciples rather than maximizing crowd sizes.
He attended weddings, shared meals, and cultivated friendships despite having urgent kingdom work.
He understood that relationship with the Father and others mattered more than achieving maximum results.
He Embraced Suffering as Part of the Path
Jesus didn’t avoid the cross to maintain earthly success. He went to the cross because that’s what kingdom success required.
Philippians 2:6-8, English Standard Version (ESV) describes His approach:
“Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Jesus pursued downward mobility, not upward. He decreased so God could be glorified. That’s the opposite of worldly ambition.
Practical Steps for Ambitious Christians
If you’re ambitious and want to succeed without forfeiting your soul, here’s how to structure your pursuits around kingdom values rather than worldly metrics.
Establish Non-Negotiable Boundaries
Decide in advance what you will not compromise regardless of opportunity. Integrity. Sabbath rest. Family time. Honesty. Sexual purity. Financial ethics.
Write these boundaries down.
Share them with accountability partners. Let them cost you opportunities that require violating them.
Business ethicist Alexander Hill argues in his book Just Business that Christians must establish ethical boundaries before facing pressure to compromise, when decision-making is clearest.
Measure Success by Faithfulness, Not Results
You control obedience to God’s calling. You don’t control outcomes.
Stop measuring success by metrics you can’t control: how much money you make, how many people follow you, how famous you become, how much influence you have.
Start measuring success by metrics you can control: did you obey what God called you to do today? Did you maintain integrity? Did you serve others? Did you prioritize relationship with God?
Build Accountability into Your Ambition
Ambitious people need people who will speak truth when success starts costing their souls.
Create a small group of trusted believers who know your ambitions, have permission to ask hard questions, and will confront you when they see soul-forfeiting patterns developing.
Meet with them regularly. Answer honestly. Listen when they challenge you.
Practice Regular Evaluation
Set quarterly appointments with yourself and God to evaluate whether your ambitious pursuits are building or destroying your soul.
Ask: Is my relationship with God deeper or shallower than last quarter? Are my closest relationships stronger or weaker? Am I becoming more like Christ or more like the world? Am I serving God’s kingdom or building my own?
Be brutally honest. Adjust course when evaluation reveals soul-forfeiture patterns.
Hold Success Loosely
1 Timothy 6:17, Christian Standard Bible (CSB) instructs:
“Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.”
Whatever success you achieve, hold it loosely. Be prepared to release it if God asks. Don’t let it become your identity or security.
The tighter you grip worldly success, the more likely it is to destroy your soul.
The Only Success That Ultimately Matters
Mark 8:36 forces a question every ambitious Christian must answer: What are you actually trying to accomplish?
If you’re pursuing worldly success using worldly methods, Jesus’s question applies directly to you.
What good will all your achievement do if it costs you your soul?
If you’re pursuing kingdom impact through godly means, you can be ambitious without soul loss.
Your success will look different from the world’s success, but it will matter eternally.
The choice isn’t between ambition and passivity. It’s between ambition that serves God’s kingdom and ambition that serves self.
One builds your soul while advancing God’s purposes.
The other destroys your soul while accumulating temporary achievements that won’t matter a hundred years from now.
Choose the ambition that lets you succeed at what actually matters without losing who God created you to be.
Prayer for Ambitious Christians
Father, I’m ambitious. I want to achieve, succeed, and make an impact. But I don’t want to forfeit my soul pursuing the wrong things in the wrong ways.
Show me the difference between godly ambition that serves Your kingdom and worldly ambition that serves myself. Give me wisdom to establish boundaries I won’t compromise.
Give me courage to obey when obedience costs me opportunities. Help me measure success by faithfulness to Your calling, not comparison to others’ achievements.
Protect my soul from the corrupting influence of worldly success. Keep my relationships with You and others healthy even as I pursue ambitious goals.
Let me succeed at what actually matters without losing myself in the process.
In Jesus’s Name, Amen.
Works Referenced
Crabb, L. (2013). The Pressure’s Off: There’s a New Way to Live. WaterBrook Press. [Book]
Guinness, O. (2003). The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose for Your Life. Thomas Nelson. [Book]
Hill, A. (1997). Just Business: Christian Ethics for the Marketplace. InterVarsity Press. [Book]
Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1996). “Further Examining the American Dream: Differential Correlates of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(3), 280-287. [Journal Article]
Lane, W. L. (1974). The Gospel According to Mark. Eerdmans Publishing Company. [Book]
Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. NavPress. [Bible Translation]
Strong, J. (2010). Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Hendrickson Publishers. [Reference Book]
Willard, D. (2002). Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. NavPress. [Book]
