Life Of A Christian

I think that with many of the ills in our society it is Satan’s plan to push an agenda contrary to what God wants for His people. In the case of entitlement the ideal that is being pushed is in direct correlation to God’s ideal of service and hard work. Even in the garden Adam had to work and when Eve and he were kicked out of the garden the natural consequence of the fall was that work became harder. That Adam would now have to struggle to make the land produce because there would be obstacles. I think that weeds and soil drained of its nutrients were not an issue in the garden. They were after the fall, and when obstacles were introduced another byproduct of the fall occurred. That byproduct was laziness.

I don’t think that Adam and Eve had to struggle with being lazy in the garden. I think that they were supernaturally energized by God’s presence and Spirit and they were motivated to do what needed to be done. I think that they might have struggled with laziness after the fall, but they couldn’t succumb to it because survival was at stake. Fast forward to today when society pushes the agenda of entitlement and it feeds right into human laziness. It is natural for someone to want things for free and want to not have to work. It’s part of our sin nature. It takes a teaching that hard work and service are important parts of life and the supernatural interjection of God’s Spirit to fuel the desire to want to work and serve.

Entitlement teaches that I deserve to have what everybody else has even if I haven’t worked for it. It states that I am here to be served, not to serve. Envy and covetousness also play into this desire. When entitlement kicks in it destroys motivation. It feels right to people because it supports our laziness which also feels right. But, it isn’t right. It is very wrong and destroys productivity and it keeps us from being used by the living God to accomplish great things in this world. It keeps us from accomplishing basic acts of survival. Entitlement is present and in the moment thinking and it totally excludes any forward thinking. If i can get through today without putting forth much effort then it is a good day. Service and hard work are future oriented endeavors. They see the benefit of building into the future with delay of gratification for an ultimate higher achievement.

Entitlement teaches that I am here to be served and that the more that I can get other people to do for me the better off that I am. It destroys pride in being alive and sustaining that life to its full potential. God not only wants us to serve our own needs, but to serve those that are unable to serve themselves. Entitlement teaches that I will not only get mine, but if at all possible I will get somebody else’s also. Entitlement is the exact opposite of what God thinks. What if Jesus had felt entitled, and of all people ever he had the right to be, and decided to not leave the confines of heaven and come to serve and ultimately die in that service. Service and hard work supernaturally sustained and maintained are God’s ideals for life.

When babies are born they are very needy and it takes a lot of work to keep them maintained. We feed them and we change them and we worry about their sleep. They need us. Without the care that we provide for them they would not survive and there is this awesome sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from giving to the point of literally providing life and a hard to describe appreciation that is felt that the baby emits. There is this unconditional exchange of love that occurs. As babies grow a little bit, they know that we are their source when they need something. In the beginning, there is not anything that we won’t do for them and then there is that moment when for the first time we have to express a sentiment that they have never sensed before and that sentiment is “NO”.

I can only imagine that the child is thinking to themselves “What just happened. There must be some kind of mistake here. Hello, we have a deal. I want and you give. That’s the way it works.” I think by definition that this is our sin nature. Now, some people, especially mothers, may not want to think of it that way because taking care of babies is this pure and innocent endeavor, but taking care of babies is the only the first stage of a lengthy process called parenting. There are all kinds of documented issues that occur when a baby does not get the unconditional love and care that we are talking about so I in no way want to diminish the importance of just giving and “spoiling” that baby with love and attention. It needs to be done, but It’s only the first and critical stage in the long process of developing a well rounded adult.

Sometimes, I think that parents are caught off guard by the revelation that they now have to incorporate a new strategy in to their parenting regimen and it can take a little while to get past having to be the bad guy and make your child unhappy, but it has to get done eventually. The problem is when it doesn’t get done at all or not sufficiently enough. Modern parenting techniques and new age thinking have led to a decay in parenting and therefore a decay in society. To placate our feelings of not wanting to do the hard work of parenting we have modified the rules and taken the easy way out and guess what, we are now reaping what we have sown. Entitlement is not the odd occurrence anymore, it is the normal standard of behavior. Along with it are the companion behaviors to keep entitlement alive. Lying, cheating, stealing and abuse are all considered to be necessary because people feel the need to protect and keep an unearned and ungiven alleged right.

We now live in a world where people want what they want and they want somebody else to provide it. And, if someone manages to do well for themselves the expectation is that they will give it to somebody else whether they want to or not. The thought process is not that they should give, but that they have to. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we shouldn’t be givers, but the mindset that our society is pushing looks strangely like a mindset that we fought to defeat many years ago in a big red country east of us. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. Entitlement destroys incentive, it destroys moral fiber, it’s bucks against the improvement and growth of individual people and societies. It is the social cancer of our day and it spreading uncontrollably.

I am constantly amazed about the double standard that exists within our culture today as it pertains to the relative viewpoint. The most shocking part is that the most astounding contradictions come from alleged Christians. Maybe, i shouldn’t use the word alleged because it is not my job to question the salvation of others that profess to be Christians, but I am not questioning redemption I am questioning sanctification. I am questioning the way our Christian lives are lived out. I find myself falling into certain cultural traps even though I truly attempt to be as Spirit filled as possible and I want to live as much as possible as God would have me live. It’s not easy. I think that we all get jaded and we are all effected by personal biases and personal agendas, but I know that this is an area that I constantly have to allow the Holy Spirit to adjust my thinking and I think that adjustment only occurs when we seek it. I have to seek God’s standard and remove bias from myself as much as possible.

The Bible states that as people we do not lack for knowledge, but we lack for doing. I think that it has become more popular these days to alter and reinterpret knowledge and then, of course, the accepted doing is consequently altered. A culture that is dominated by relativism has managed to make the church and Christianity somewhat relative. The problem is that God is not relative. He is absolute and therefore his teachings and his commandments are absolute also. This rubs against the grain of a culture that wants to state that absolutes are oppressive and restrictive unless of course it is the absolute that everything is relative and that our worldview and consequently lifestyle can and should be determined by personal preference.

I expect this from the unsaved world because they are driven by the worldly culture that is controlled by the prince of this world. I am surprised, though, by the amount of professing Christians that either turn their back on the teachings of the Bible or reinterpret them to appease a personal agenda. I have a dear friend who is African American and he was appalled by many of his supposed Christian brothers who voted for Obama because he was African American even though they totally disagreed with his clearly socialistic policies. I have a family member who has voted strictly from a certain bias for many years because of his connection to organized labor despite the fact that he knows the agenda that he supports is against a Godly worldview. i have another friend who is a Christian, but he refuses to support a Godly social agenda because of a history of abuse from Christian legalism.

These are the types of things that occur because of relativism. The truth is skewed for the sake of personal preference and comfort. God and His grace do not have an opportunity to do the work that He has promised He will do in the lives of His people because His promises and His message are diluted. There are absolute truths and without them we flounder. We may not see them as compromise, but they are. Without absolutes there is not a firm foundation to hold onto and then to build on. Relativism is the proverbial shifting sand. Relativism is convenient and it is satisfies a desire inside of us to be in control, but the truth is we are not in control. Any security we think we gain is false and fleeting unless it comes from the absolute truths of God. Relativism actually destroys the thing that it vehemently defends, freedom, and instead trades it for oppression and reliance on a ever changing standard that requires a constant altering of who we are to maintain a facade of peace. A peace that can only be achieved by a never changing standard from a never changing God.

As I think about the last post on need, some other thoughts have come to mind. First, need is a funny thing. I think it’s relative and I think it’s very subjective. I think that it fits right in with our modern culture and the values that it pushes. Somebody once told me that Satan has two methods by which he tries to make Christians ineffective. One is to get us to sin and destroy our testimony and coincidentally our lives and the lives of those around us. The other is to get us to believe that things are good and that there is no need for any great effort to do anything. The first one is more obvious and overt. The second, while more subtle and time consuming, could be much more destructive to the church’s efforts or as i would guess Satan would be quite content with, at least render it ineffective.

We live in this culture that constantly professes that things are just fine and despite obvious financial, social and cultural catastrophes never pushes any agenda other than it’s all good despite the fact that the markers are evident. When I talk about the deterioration of the culture or the economically precarious times that we live in I am labeled a radical right wing zealot that needs to understand the reality that everything is under control and I am told that I need to relax. The problem is that the culture has been lulled into a level of complacency that is impenetrable by any logic or reason. This does not bode well for creating urgency in our walk. As a matter of fact, urgency or need rubs against the grain and could force people to consider the alternatives and nobody wants to do that. Need would be a sign that all is not well and that can’t be allowed to occur.

Another deterrent to showing need is that while not everyone is prosperous, and I refer to various parts of our lives, that people are generally content with just surviving and just getting by. The idea of pushing and sacrificing for more is not an attitude that is pervasive in our culture anymore. It’s almost frowned upon. Along side of that is a sense of entitlement which is justified with the caveat that people don’t want a lot. They just want enough to survive and if that’s all they want then why shouldn’t somebody just give it to them. The need for more is not a concept that is prominent and so reaching out to the God of the universe for more is not either. People can get mediocre from the culture so why need God for more..

Another level of contentment contributes to the formula also. Many people will play the cultural game and get a piece of the pie and then simply come to the place where they are content with a certain level of success and then life becomes all about maintaining of lifestyle and possessions. This type of attitude is not conducive to wanting or needing God in our lives. The combination of any or all of these factors has led to a tremendous lack of a need for God. We have generationally settled into a groove that does not leave room for the God of the universe and His work. 911 gave a little urgency, but that faded. The financial crash of 2008 did the same, but it also faded. The fact is that as a culture we create fixes which are not fixes at all, but do appease our human sense of need so that we do not seek God. I think about the Israelites in the Old Testament and I think that time after time God wanted them to need Him and they would for a while, but they always went back to their own way until it was too late. I feel that, as a culture, this may be our destiny.