"Entitled?"

The spacebar on my laptop computer is currently not working well. It is likely easily fixable with a can of compressed air that will remove whatever obstruction under the key is causing it to malfunction, but for now it is quite an irritant. My computer works nevertheless, and thus I have in my hands a machine that allows me to almost instantly send and receive information to and from the entire world. Previous generations could not even imagine such an opportunity, and so the notion that I am irritated by a sticking spacebar is, in real terms, laughable and absurd.

I am reminded of the truth that one of the effects of sin in the human race is that we are plagued by nature with a sense of entitlement. "Ye shall be as gods" claimed the devil to our original forefathers (Genesis 3:5). They embraced the lie, and woven into the flesh of the human race is the dark notion that good things should flow to us because we are who we are and what we are. As the wayward son demanded of his father, "Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me," so we believe ourselves to be worthy of the portion due to us because whether conscious of it or not, our flesh fancies itself as a god worthy of the abundance due to such beings (Luke 15:2).

Nothing could be further from the truth. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die... all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Ezekial 18:4; Romans 6:23). The human race is not divine, and is not even "human," as God defines humanity. In and of ourselves, we are rather flesh, flesh inhabited and dominated by a "law of sin" that would utterly and eternally condemn us apart from our Creator's intervention (Genesis 6:3; Romans 7:23). According to the standard of the God who made us, the only standard that matters, we are worthy of "the second death" and "the lake of fire" spoken of in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 20:14-15). Any notion of entitlement is therefore grievous deception, and must be rejected whenever we sense its presence in us.

It is a gracious God who "giveth to all life and breath and all things," and who "hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us after our iniquities" (Acts 17:25; Psalm 103:10). He desires to redeem us from the hell to which we are actually entitled, and at the greatest cost to Himself. Indeed, the only truly human being who ever lived, the Lord Jesus Christ, was worthy of every good thing His Father could bestow upon Him. Instead, "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (II Corinthians 8:9). In this context, our next breath is known and received as the most marvelous gift of grace, and all sense of entitlement is rightly banished by the loving and amazed sense of gratitude that floods the trusting heart. Entitled? Never. Grateful? Always.

"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

(Romans 5:20-21)

Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

(Romans 4:4-5)