Gratitude

Steven Furtick post:  The sabotage of entitlement

One of the things I try to emphasize regularly with my staff is the importance of us not taking the incredible things we’re experiencing for granted. We have been blessed to get to see God do things in four years that most churches don’t see in forty. And the danger for us is that we could normalize the abnormal. Or even worse, come to see what we’re experiencing as something we’re entitled to.

But this isn’t just a danger for us. Or for people or organizations that are doing or seeing things that are considered extraordinary.

It’s a danger for all of us.

Whenever you have something that is essentially a privilege for too long you can begin to feel it’s something you’re entitled to. Something that’s yours by right.

When in fact everything you have is by the grace of God. Everything.

You are not entitled to have a spouse. You are blessed with one.
You are not entitled to have a job. You are provided one.
You are not entitled to healing, forgiveness, or salvation. You are given them.

We sabotage our story when we begin to see the benefits and blessings of God as things we’re entitled to. And that’s because entitlement is the enemy of genuine thankfulness and appreciation. Both to God for what He has given us and for what He has given us.

I think that’s why throughout the Bible God repeatedly tells His people to recount His deeds on their behalf and the blessings that He had given them. It wasn’t because He needed to be reminded of how good He was. It was because they needed to be reminded of how good they had it. And how much they did not deserve it.

We need to be reminded too. None of us deserve anything we have. None of us are entitled to anything. But that’s what makes God’s benefits and blessings so extraordinary. God’s grace is the grounds for our gratitude.