Lose Your Entitlement Complex
Entitled people think they deserve all the material things their parents spent a lifetime accumulating. They feel put upon when others ask them for assistance, but they freely ask others for help. They have no interest in what’s important to others but think others should be interested in what’s important to them. They treat traffic control signs as optional suggestions. They don’t pay their fair share. They excel in receiving but don’t reciprocate. They inconsiderately inconvenience others repeatedly and frequently offend them. In a group setting, they expect to be leaders and reap more glory than others for positive outcomes.1 Such people are blind to ultimate reality.
A “Christian” with a sense of entitlement doesn’t understand the gospel. From God’s perspective, we deserve hell because of our rebellion against Him. If we want what we’re entitled to, that’s it. We can’t plumb the depths of hell’s unpleasantness.
We’ve fallen far short of God’s infinite perfection in all He says, does, and is. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, NIV). Because we fall short, we face eternal separation from God, but He has provided one blood-covered escape hatch. Jesus’ blood coats it, and our deliverance is by grace (God’s undeserved favor) alone through faith. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23, NIV). It’s all by grace. It’s a gift (Ephesians 2:8–9). We receive the total opposite of what we deserve. The gospel is the good news that God punished His Son with the penalty we deserve and credited Jesus’ goodness to our account through faith. The only appropriate responses for grace and gift are gratitude and humility, the opposite of entitlement.
The Apostle Paul challenged us to live for Jesus, who died for us. “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5:15, NIV). The cross that Christ carried was not His but ours. Christ’s servants should have zero sense of entitlement. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” (Luke 17:10, NIV). It’s foolish to live life perpetually pursuing what we think we deserve. Instead, let’s live humbly and grateful that God doesn’t give us what we deserve! #freechristiandiscipleshipresources #freeevangelismresources #freechristianleadershipresources