You Deserve It!
Over the past few years we, as consumers, hear more and more that we deserve… pick you noun or adjective: happiness, a Mercedes, a new home, peace of mind, a vacation, and on and on. Entitlement has become a debilitating phenomena in our culture. We truly are the “me” generation. I deserve it, I want it, and I gotta have it are mantras of the MTV generation. This disease has infiltrated the spirits of so many leading to problems with worth, principles, and character. It has caused crippling debt, broken homes, and failed marriages as well as poor self esteem, failed expectations, and depression. And why shouldn’t it? What happens when people feel that they deserve something but they don’t get it? It produces ideas of injustice and unmet expectations; disappointment is inevitable.
The truth is, you don’t deserve a new home or a vacation. You don’t deserve that new car after all.
The truth is, you deserve what you earn.
But how does that fit in with God’s plan?
Here is the catch. In the world’s economy, you don’t deserve anything; you are a fool if you think you do. BUT, in God’s economy, you deserve everything.
God has given us worth and has chosen us to become his children, as such, we are entitled to an abundant life. We deserve it not by our own merits but by God’s grace and love for us.
This does not mean that we will:
- Get everything we want
- Have a perfect life
- Never have unmet expectations
But it does mean that we should:
- Come before God with requests knowing that we have the right to ask
- Know that we have worth based on Christ’s work on the cross
- Share the blessings we experience and deserve because we have a God who desires to bless others through us
It is a whole different way of thinking. It is neither the foolishness of entitlement that comes from the greed of the world nor is it the low expectations that that are derived from a lack of worth.
We should have a high expectation of what we deserve from God, but we need to let go of our expectations as they relate to our desires.
What do you think you deserve from God? Have you gotten it yet?
