Ambition is good in itself as a driving force that enables one to produce and increase prosperity both physical and spiritual, much like a watch with a working spring. Without it a person would accomplish little and remain unproductive. Yet the desire to succeed must extend beyond the self, as Christ shifted the focus from singular individual achievement to group success in which all rise or fall together through cooperation and sharing. Personal self-assertiveness easily becomes unbalanced when centered on the self, so it must be guarded and corrected by outgrowing individual success into larger loyalties that include responsibility toward others. This responsibility encompasses the use of wealth and reaches its clearest expression in the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself and in the body analogy that shows every part dependent on the others. The same principle operates negatively as well, since a little leaven leavens the whole lump. True success therefore requires that personal prosperity be shared so that it becomes a source of success for others; otherwise it is not genuine success. This enlarged understanding of ambition aligns with Christ's change of success from the merely physical to the spiritual, where being rich toward God supplies the real shelter and security that money alone cannot provide.

Ambition driven by pride is evil because it persuades a person to rise above what God has assigned him and become something he thinks he deserves. It began with Satan, whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty. He corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor and wanted still greater power, saying, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14). He then passed the same desire to Adam and Eve, promising, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil." Pride was not in them as God created them, since God called His creation very good, but it entered their thinking in Satan's presence, and its first exercise earned them death and ejection from God's presence. King Belshazzar shows the same pattern. Though he knew how God humbled his father Nebuchadnezzar, he lifted himself up against the Lord of heaven and lost his life and kingdom. The world of Satan's creation is a reservoir of influences that feed the budding kernel of pride in each person. It can lead a person from that sin to others in order to accomplish his ambitions, such as misusing others. Pride also blinds him to his own spiritual condition. Unless he repents, "pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). Humility before God defuses this drive.