All Sons & Daughters - DevotionalSample

We Give You Thanks

Entitlement: An unrealistic, unmerited or inappropriate expectation of favorable living conditions and favorable treatment at the hands of others.

Entitlement is eating away at whole generations. People stand and scratch their heads wondering where their fortune is and why it hasn’t already come. Many make poor choices when it comes to careers, relationships, finances, and general living due to what they believe they alone deserve and when they deserve to get it. In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about two sons, one who squanders his inheritance on recklessly extravagant living and the other son who stays home, serving his father and biding his time till his father chooses to give him the portion to which he believes he is entitled. After the reckless son finds himself starving and humiliated he comes to understand all that his father had provided for him. This revelation leads him back home where his father throws a huge party to celebrate.

This is the moment where the second son’s sense of entitlement makes itself known. He deserved the party. He deserved the best food. He deserved the recognition. He deserved the honor. He deserved to be celebrated. Watching his brother (the undeserved) receive what he felt was his, gnawed at him and kept him away from joining in the party. He withdrew from eating the fine food and listening to the music and experiencing the father’s joy.

Every time we acknowledge and respond to Christ as our Creator, Provider, Redeemer, Savior, the source of all that we have and hope for, we become free to reap the benefits of being His child. Every time we cling to our unjustified sense of entitlement, we are stepping away from the party. Our thankfulness for Him, what He has done, and what He will continue to do, releases us FROM ourselves INTO a place where He can Father us. Where He can lavish upon us not what we are actually entitled to (death) but what He believes we, as His children, are entitled to (life).