For many years I have observed two great frustrating factors in the Lord’s work: ambition and opinion. In human society, ambition is a great problem. Everyone, whether in political, commercial, or educational circles, is seeking after promotion. Even among students in school, there is much competition to be the first in their class. The desire for promotion is ambition. Ambition even creeps into the Lord’s work. In the church life, there may be an ambition in some brothers for the eldership. Ambition is hidden within us. If the brothers and sisters say “amen” more loudly to someone else’s prayer than to ours in a meeting, we may become jealous. We may be bothered, and after the meeting we may not be able to eat our meal happily. Even in marriage life there may be competition between the husband and wife. For a wife to question the headship of the husband offends him greatly. The husband may be bothered that everyone seems to listen to his wife more than to him, or that his children seem to agree with his wife more than with him. This consideration is related to ambition.
The problem of opinion can be seen in Matthew 16:21-26: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised on the third day. And Peter, taking Him to him, began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord; this shall by no means happen to You! But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he should gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?” In this portion of the Word, we can see opinion (v. 22), Satan (v. 23), the self (v. 24), and the soul-life (vv. 25, 26). Peter’s disposition is clearly seen in these verses. Although the word disposition is not mentioned here, it can be seen in the elements of opinion, the self, the soul-life, and Satan. Satan is in our opinion, and our opinion comes from our self. It is the product of our disposition. Without opinion, there would be no such thing as disposition. A person’s disposition is seen in his opinion.
In marriage life the sin of ambition does not arise every day, but the problem of opinion may arise many times each day. Both brothers and sisters have their opinions. However, the sisters may express them more easily, while the brothers keep their opinions within them. The brothers’ opinions may be even stronger than the sisters’ opinions, but the brothers may not express them. When a brother is driving a car, his wife may express many opinions about the way to drive, but the husband may silently carry out his own opinion.
In the Lord’s work, in the church life, and in the spiritual life, the greatest damaging factor is our opinion. For many years in the Lord’s work I have seen the problem of opinion. Our usefulness before the Lord depends greatly on the matter of our opinion. If we are opinionated, we are through with the Lord’s work. In the past, the brothers over me in the Lord’s work used me more when I had no opinion. When I had an opinion, they could not use me. Since I came out of mainland China in 1949, a number of saints have spontaneously come under my direction in the Lord’s work. How much they can be used also depends upon their opinion. The more opinionated one is, the less he can be used.
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