The Entitlement Culture

The American constitution defines certain “inalienable rights”, while our government sets out to deliver them. We live in an age of entitlement. We demand and expect a certain standard of living: a good house, a decent education, an above-inflation salary, streets free of crime and grime, must have appliances, designer décor, fashionable clothes, great vacations … and why not? We're American! We deserve it!
Psychologists and sociologists are linking this sense of entitlement to the rise in violent crime and inappropriate social behavior. If we don't get what we think we deserve – materially and emotionally – we are easily overcome by a sense of injustice. And this can bubble over into rage: date rage, road rage, sports rage, shopping rage, parking rage … spiritual rage?
Is it possible that this spirit of entitlement, and I use the word “spirit” intentionally, has spilled over into the Church? I certainly think it has. And why not? We're Christians! We deserve it! It's not just the prosperity gospel we're talking about here, nor just the upwardly mobile who measure spiritual growth by material success. Fortunately the deception of this kind of Christianity has been unmasked, and most of us, in theory at least, don't subscribe to it. But the spirit of entitlement is subtler than that – and more resilient. We try our best to sweep it out of our homes and churches, but fail to remove it from our hearts. And it's in our hearts that it's most dangerous.
The apostle Paul asks, “Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?” (Rom. 11:35). It's a rhetorical question. None of us have a right to expect anything from God. And yet, by his grace, he chooses to lavish blessings upon us.
But surely we must have some rights? Something God tells us we're entitled to? Yes, we do – the Bible tells us that “To him who overcomes I will give the right to eat from the tree of life” (Rev. 2:7) and we are reminded that “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1).
These are the only two “rights” the Bible alludes to, but it is much more forthcoming in telling us what we “deserve”! For example: “What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved” (Ezra 9:13). So if we've already been granted our rights, and, by his grace, not got what we deserve, surely we should be satisfied. After all, godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6). And yet, how many of us are truly content?
Through our saving relationship with Jesus Christ we gain the status of a beloved child. What it means to be that child is open to interpretation, skewed as it is through our earthly experience of parenting, but one thing we can be sure of: however the Father chooses to raise us will be in our own best interest. Unlike some legislation that protects the rights of children, God's expression of discipline and love is not reduced to a set of rules.
If you're anything like me, this leaves us a little insecure. How do we know how God will treat us? What can we expect of him? God promises to act consistently with his character: “I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the Lord” (Jer. 9:24). God is kind. God is just. God is righteous. But what form will his righteousness take? Will he forgive us lavishly like he so often did with David, or will he choose to treat us more like Ananias and Sapphira who were struck down for a “mere” lie?
Who can know the mind of God? Who can know how it applies to us? That's why we want to know our rights, what we're entitled to, so we can “hold God to it”. We would like to believe that God only has good things in store for us, but we may not like the way he wants to deliver them.
The root of all this is fear – not Godly fear, but fear born out of separation from the Father. No matter what assurances the Holy Spirit whispers to us, when things aren't going to plan – our plan – we fear that we may be separated again. We need God to prove himself to us and we secretly begin to doubt him, his love for us and our merit in being loved.
We set check-lists in our heart: “If God heals me from this illness, answers my prayer, gives me the breakthrough I've desired for so long, then I'll know he loves me.” We rejoice, only in part, when our brothers and sisters testify to answered prayer. We're encouraged, yes, but secretly jealous that God hasn't done the same thing for us: “Why did God answer her prayer and not mine? What makes her more entitled than me?”
But God does not work to specifications. He is not tied to our agenda. He is not constrained by our limited understanding. God's way of salvation was so unexpected that many Jews refused to accept it. That was not who the Messiah was supposed to be: a suffering servant, beaten and hung on a cross. Where is the glory in that?
And where is the glory in our sufferings? When the prayers we have poured out are not answered in the way we expect when the blessings which we believe are our “rights” as children of God do not arrive, are we going to doubt the existence of the Father? Possibly not, but like American citizens who expect a certain standard of living, we are going to grow ever more resentful when we don't get it. If you look into your heart, you may be shocked to see anger at God. It may take a long time to recognize it, but it's there. You may be angry that God has not answered certain prayers. It might have started out as disappointment, but now it's turned into anger. Ah, but what freedom this brings!
Like Job you can tell God exactly how you feel, and he understands. Like Job, we need to be freed from the spirit of entitlement. Job expected, quite understandably, that it was his right to be protected from too much suffering. If you can stomach it, read through the Book of Job, and the disasters God deliberately – yes, deliberately – allowed to take place. First his business was devastated: his livestock was stolen and his employees were killed. Then his ten children died in a freak storm. His health took a turn for the worse after this, and he broke out in sores from head to toe. His friends stuck around for a while, but eventually they, and his wife, got sick of waiting for things to get better and left. Surely a child of God should not have to go through what he went through? Surely he was entitled to more? After all, God himself declared Job to be the most blameless and upright man on earth (Job 1:8). But no, God had other plans – plans to purify him, then to bless him abundantly (Job 42:12-16).
Now I'm not saying we should resign ourselves to the sufferings of Job. Thank God, by his mercy, most of us will not have to go through that. But we only have to look at the plight of persecuted Christians around the world to know that our comfort is a blessing and not a right. And until we realize that we will never truly be free. Godliness with contentment is indeed great gain.

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