True Entitlement

There is a growing attitude of entitlement in the world today. More than ever before, our culture promotes entitlement in a vast cornucopia of “just” deserves to feel the way we want, possess what we want, to receive the treatment that we want, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam. This attitude naturally develops out of the fertile seedbed of our self indulgence. It would appear that the mercies of God, faithfully poured out on creation, are culminating with the created declaring inherent privileges and the “right” to special treatment. We have intentionally established a culture of entitlement which conditions us to expect God’s grace!

The result of this conditioning is diminishment of gratitude and assumption of the entitlement attitude being discussed. In other words, in the presence of God’s immense grace our human nature takes over and leads us to believe that this is the way in must be. We are entitled to it. No longer is God’s grace considered a undeserved blessing bestowed upon us. It is now something we are deserving of and even demand!

Our sense of entitlement is based in pride. This pride is sin - selfish, disrespectful, arrogant sin. That sin leads us to raise our fists to heaven and demand that which we want. Instead of bowing our knees to a gracious Creator, we scoff at His grace and demand what are eyes see and what our hearts desire. Ultimately, our entitlement attitude will lead us to refuse God’s grace and war against the Almighty, thinking Him ungracious due to His refusal to satisfy our entitled selves.

Rather than taking this entitlement path to destruction, let’s consider what we are truly entitled to receive. To perceive our true entitlement we must understand the relationship between creation and its Creator. If there is no understanding of this relationship, there can never be a real understanding of our true entitlement. As the creation, human beings have been given everything. All things have been put under our dominion - everything on the earth. This dominion is established on the authority of Almighty God and is maintained only through the exceeding grace He has poured out on human existence. Without God’s authority and the presence of His grace, this world would have chewed mankind up and spit us out long ago.

So, our position in the created world and the blessing bestowed on us through the grace of God are all entirely dependent upon the purpose and nature of a loving and gracious Creator. Put another way, we humans are the beneficiaries of God. All that we have we receive from His hand at His good pleasure. We cannot get what we need on our own. We do not have the power to stand without the covering of God’s grace. Like children dependent on a benevolent caretaker, we rely upon our Creator for even our daily bread.

Now, with this truth as ground zero for our existence, we can understand that we are entitled to nothing. Since God, the Creator, gives all things, and we, the creation, are deserving of nothing that He gives, there is no entitlement. I know! This is hard to accept. But let me take us a step further down the path of unacceptable truth. As stated, we are not inherently entitled to anything God gives us. We are, however, entitled to something. As progeny of the first in the line of mankind we have inherited the corruption introduced by Adam and Eve through sin. Yes, we share that most unenvious of titles - sinner. We are corruption and as such we deserve what corruption deserves. We are entitled to removal permanently from the presence of Perfection. Our true entitlement is destruction.

But, praise be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who, though uncorrupted, gave Himself up for us so that we might exchange the entitlement of the corrupted for the redemption found in His sacrifice and eternal adoption under a new title. The sinner has become the child of God. Not due to entitlement, but solely by grace. For this reason we should forsake any thoughts of self entitlement and, with grateful hearts, hold fast, to the salvation found in Jesus Christ and Him alone.