Wednesday Read: Spiritual Entitlement and Entitled Hearts

The laborers hired at dawn expected preferential treatment. They'd worked all day in the scorching heat while others showed up at the eleventh hour. When the landowner paid everyone the same wage, the all-day workers complained: "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (Matthew 20:12). They'd received exactly what they'd been promised, but entitlement made them angry because others received grace.

Entitlement is the belief that we deserve certain treatment, outcomes, or blessings based on our effort, status, or identity. It whispers that good behavior should guarantee favorable circumstances, that faithful service should produce visible rewards, that our spiritual resume should earn us preferential treatment from God. But the gospel demolishes entitlement entirely - we deserve nothing but receive everything through grace.

The older brother in the prodigal son story embodied spiritual entitlement. He'd stayed home, worked faithfully, obeyed completely - yet when his wayward brother returned to celebration, he erupted in resentment: "I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat" (Luke 15:29). He'd been serving to earn, working to deserve, obeying to accumulate credit. When grace was extended to someone who hadn't earned it, his entitled heart was exposed.

This attitude infects modern Christianity in subtle ways. We're faithful in church attendance and feel entitled to answered prayers. We tithe consistently and expect financial blessings. We serve diligently and resent when others receive opportunities we wanted. We've turned grace into a transaction - behave correctly, receive rewards - forgetting that grace is, by definition, unearned favor.

Job's friends operated from entitlement theology: good people prosper, bad people suffer, therefore Job's suffering must indicate hidden sin. Their theology was neat, fair, and completely wrong. God doesn't dispense blessings based on moral performance or suffering based on secret sins. He's sovereign, and his ways don't conform to our entitled expectations of how he should operate.

Paul had impressive credentials - circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, blameless under the law (Philippians 3:5-6). If anyone could claim entitlement before God, it was Paul. Yet he called these credentials "rubbish" compared to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8). He understood that righteousness comes through faith, not achievement; through grace, not earning; through Christ's work, not our own.

Entitlement makes us ungrateful - always comparing what we have to what we think we deserve, focusing on what we lack rather than what we've been given. It breeds resentment toward God when he doesn't perform according to our expectations and bitterness toward others when they receive what we think we've earned. It transforms service into scorekeeping and worship into wage negotiation.

The cure for entitlement is remembering the gospel: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Not after we earned it, not because we deserved it, but while we were actively rebelling. Every breath is grace, every moment is mercy, every blessing is undeserved favor. We're not owed anything; we've been given everything. When this truth penetrates our hearts, entitlement dies and gratitude flourishes.

What do you feel entitled to from God? What outcomes do you believe your faithfulness should guarantee? Where does your service carry the unspoken expectation of reward? Examine your heart for entitled attitudes, confess them honestly, and return to the gospel that gives freely what we could never earn.