Entitlement The Opposite Of Thankfulness
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” Colossians 4:2-6.
I’ve spent a lot of time and expended a lot of energy to help people before with never an acknowledgment of what it had cost me to do so. And, it’s not that I need to be thanked; I didn’t help them for the gratitude I would receive. But rather, it is the attitude of the person I helped that bothered me. The person felt entitled to the help, and so I was simply discharging my duty “owed”.
Entitlement is the opposite of thankfulness. In thankfulness, we acknowledge the other person (or God) didn’t need to do what he did and our needs were placed before his own.
That’s why over & over again we’re told to be thankful in the Scriptures.
Besides the help God gives us each and every day that He doesn’t need to, He gave us His Son to die in our place on the cross when He didn’t need to. We all had sinned and deserved death. God would have been within His rights to turn His back on us and let us face the consequence of our transgression. But He didn’t. He loved instead. He died to give us eternal life when He didn’t need to. No one’s entitled to heaven.
Are you thankful?
Douglas Kashorek
