Last week I listened to nationally syndicated radio host and columnist Michael Brown’s handbook “Saving A Sick America,” (SASA) a biblically-based moral and cultural renaissance, revealing that the key for the inspiration and guidance necessary for a moral and cultural revolution for recapturing America’s greatness consists in returning to our spiritual and moral roots.
And yes indeed, at first blush, this book too appears to be just one more of the thousands continually appearing for decades now. But from my perhaps yet immature perspective as a blogger, I’ve already realized effective sustainable life change do not occur easily without significant reorientation of our perspectives and desires. And I particularly found Chapter Twelve in SASA titled “Putting An End To The Blame Game & Saying Goodbye To The Entitlement Mentality,” as a key document for exploration. But may I remind us as readers, since we are all to encourage and mentor others in various capacities every day, perhaps this has a wider application than I originally considered, therefore I am sharing it with you. Even though I spent considerable time attempting to condense this eleven page chapter, this document is still nearly 3000 words long. Make no mistake! This document remains a chapter. Pace your reading accordingly!
Ecclesiastes 1: 9–10 Tells us there is nothing new under the sun. The problems and challenges we face today, although packaged differently than in past centuries, are the same problems and challenges experienced by previous generations. We have the same fears, desires, lusts, loves, hopes, and dreams, whether we live in the 21st -century A.D. or the 21st – century BC. This is another reason God‘s word is so amazingly relevant: Our Maker knows us better than we know ourselves, and the sins and the shortcomings and the weaknesses of our forefathers, going all the way back to the garden of Eden – are our sins and shortcomings and weaknesses today. In many ways, we are just like Adam and Eve.
Let’s go back then, to the beginning, to an earthly paradise called the garden of Eden. We know the story all too well. Eve was deceived by the serpent, and she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, giving the fruit to her husband Adam, who also ate of it. This is what is known as the fall of man.
Immediately, Adam and Eve were conscious of their nakedness. Before that they had the innocence of little children and were one unaware they were unclothed. Now they had to cover up. For the first time they also experienced guilt and fear. They hid from the presence of the Lord, whose commandments they had violated. They also learned to make excuses and pass the buck. The narrative in Genesis 3 is remarkable:
Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.“
“Who told you that you were naked? “asked the Lord God. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?“
The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.“
Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?“
“The serpent deceived me, “she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” (v. 9–13 NLT)
This sounds just like you and me: “Lord, it’s not my fault! Someone else is to blame!“
When God confronted Adam, the man in essence replied, “It is not my fault! It was that woman that you gave me. She is guilty. And for the record, I never asked you for a companion. That was all your idea. You are the one who put her in the garden with me, so in reality, you’re the one responsible for what I did.”
When God confronted Eve she replied, “It is not my fault! The snake tricked me! And just for the record, although I’m not actually saying it out loud, you were the one who put that deceiver in the garden with me. Otherwise, I would never thought of disobeying you. Not in a million years. So, if there’s anyone to blame here, it’s you for putting that arch deceiver right in my own backyard.”
How did God respond? First, he pronounced a curse on the snake, then on the woman, then on the man (Genesis 3:14-19). Everyone is responsible before the Lord, and excuses evaporate in his presence. The blame game doesn’t work before an all-seeing God. To paraphrase the old joke, you can’t kill your parents and then plead for leniency from the court because you’re an orphan. Not in God’s court!
The Lord calls us to take responsibility for our actions, refusing to entertain her fragile excuses. This is something you find throughout the Gospels, where Jesus, who was so full of compassion and long-suffering and kindness and tenderness, showed no tolerance for excuses. He cut through them like a knife cuts through butter. He exposes them for what they were: empty words used to cover up the lack of willingness. That’s why, when Jesus was on the earth, he didn’t trust himself to people, “because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:24–25). He also knew that there was nothing new under the sun when it came to the human race.
When, in response to Jesus command to “follow me, “the man said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father,“ Jesus replied, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God“ (Luke 9:59-60).
The fact is that Jesus was sensitive, and he was committed to honoring one’s parents (see especially Mark 7:1-13). But he saw through this man’s excuse, recognizing that the man was procrastinating. Today Jesus might seem harsh and uncaring. He is hardly like the Jesus we hear preached from our pulpits these days. The contemporary Jesus would never hurt any one’s feelings like this. But that, of course, is one of the big differences between the real Jesus – the Jesus of the Scriptures who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, (Heb 13:8) – and the modern, fairy tale version of Jesus.
It is absolutely true that we are saved by grace, not by works, and that eternal life is a gift. But Paul also made clear that with grace came responsibility, writing, “I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesian 4:1). And “Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God – which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2).
Paul also had no places for empty excuses, telling the believers in Rome that “each of us will give an account of himself to God” and explaining to the believers in Corinth that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” Rom. 14:12; II Corinthians 5:10).
These are sobering words. As children of God, we will give account to our Father one day, not to determine if we are saved or lost but to determine our future rewards.
It is true that he is for us, not against us; that he desires to bless, not curse; that there is no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Jesus; that Christ himself is our advocate, which means he is pleading our cause. Therefore we submit to the Lord out of love rather than cower before him in servile fear. This means we will take responsibility for our sins, which is something else we don’t hear about too often these days. As a Christian apologist Jeremiah Johnson observed, instead of repentance we hear “a lot of talk about brokenness and negativity, as if Christ humbled Himself to the point of death to cure depression and fix bad attitudes. The modern church has largely done away with the biblical language of sin and salvation, replacing it with gooey postmodern verbiage that appeals to a generation raised on psychobabble and self-help seminars.“
Johnson then quoted Pastor John MacArthur:
That kind of thinking has all but driven words like sin, repentance, contrition, atonement, restitution, and redemption out of public discourse. If no one is supposed to feel guilty, how could anyone be a sinner? Modern culture has the answer: people are victims. Victims are not responsible for what they do; they are casualties of what happens to them. So every human failing must be described in terms of how the perpetrator has been victimized. We are all supposed to be “sensitive“ and “compassionate“ enough to see that the very behaviors we used to label “sin“ are actually evidence of victimization.
Victimization has gained so much influence that as far as society is concerned, there is practically no such thing as sin anymore. Anyone can escape responsibility for his or her wrongdoing simply by claiming the status of a victim. It has radically changed the way our society looks at human behavior.
We are not sinners anymore; we are morally challenged. We don’t break God‘s commandments; we have a disease. We are not wicked; we are weak. And above all, we’re not guilty, since guilt implies responsibility and God knows we are not responsible. Someone else is to blame!
The bottom line is this: if you want to grow spiritually, if you want to become mature, if you want to fulfill your God-given destiny, then adopt a no-excuses policy for your life.
You alone are responsible for your success or failure, and the quicker you learn to embrace this way of thinking, the quicker you will make progress – real, discernible progress. No one will be able to stop you from living a productive, meaningful life, and every stumbling block will become a steppingstone. His grace will empower you as you give yourself to him.
It is true that people often hurt us and that circumstances are often against us, and many times we do suffer because of other people‘s sins and negligence and misdeeds. But making excuses will make things worse, not better, while shifting the blame will not provide you with the single constructive solution.
But there is one more step to take if you really want to swim against the tide in today’s society, and so I encourage you to embrace this attitude as well: nobody owes me anything, and I’m not “entitled“ to a wonderful life. Unfortunately, many Americans hold the exact opposite of this belief, and this crippling entitlement mentality dominates much of our nation today. It is the mindset that says, “Society owes me a better life.“
Conservapedia.com defines entitlement mentality as a “a state of mind in which an individual comes to believe that privileges are instead rights, and they are to be expected as a matter of course.“ In the words of Alethea Luna, “a sense of entitlement is established upheld by the belief that we are the center of the universe, and if the universe doesn’t meet our needs and desires, all hell will break loose.“
According to Conservapedia.com, entitlement mentality is characterized by:
1.) A lack of appreciation for the sacrifices of others
2.)Lack of personal responsibility
3.)An inability to accept that actions carry consequences
4.) Increased dependency on the Nanny state big government intervention, and expectation that the government will intervene to solve personal problems. Upon losing a job, for instance, someone with an entitlement mentality is likely to turn to the government for unemployment handouts rather than immediately seeking another job.
5.) Ignorance of the Bill of Rights. Those within entitlement mentality frequently imagine so-called rights that are in no way guaranteed – for instance, the “right to employment,“ or the “right to not be offended” or “the “right to healthcare.” Moreover, they misinterpret the Declaration of Independence’s affirmation of their right to pursue happiness as a Constitutional guarantee of happiness.
6.) Support for wholesale expansion of Welfare state social programs as a cure all for perceived “injustice.”
Now, if we go back to the garden, back to Adam and Eve, we can see that the entitlement mentality is the flip side of the blame shifting mentality. Blame-shifting says I’m not responsible for my failure; someone else is,“ while entitlement says, “I’m not responsible for improving my situation; someone else is.” Either way, someone else is to blame for my current situation, and if I don’t find myself where I want to be today, it’s someone else’s fault.
This dangerous attitude is crippling a whole generation, but once again, this attitude is nothing new. It is just greatly on the rise in our day. As expressed by Kate S Rourke, “Children in the most recent generation of adults born between 1982 and 1995, known as ‘Generation Y,’ were raised to believe that it is their right to have everything given to them more than any other previous generation.” This mind-set has been here before; it has just become much worse.
Once again, God‘s word has a major word of correction and redirection for us today. Entitlement mentality is destroying our culture and hurting a whole generation. The Bible’s directive to take full responsibility for our lives and quit making excuses is just what we need.
Notice the admonition in the Ephesians 4:28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” And now since the former thief is also a follower of Jesus, he is working not only to make a living, but he is working to have extra money to help those in need. This is the complete crucifixion of the entitlement mentality. Others are not responsible for me; I am responsible for others.
I believe the entitlement mentality is one of the greatest strongholds in our society today. It undercuts initiative, encourages apathy, and discourages visionary sacrifice. Worst of all, it is so deeply in bedded that we’re not even conscious of it, making it harder to resist and overcome. But resist it and overcome it we must. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck on a merry-go-round of blame shifting and victim hood, getting angry, pointing our fingers, making accusations, and going nowhere.
Jesus gives us three practical principles in Luke 16:
1.) “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much“ (v.10). You will not be trusted with much until you prove yourself trustworthy with very little. In my early days of radio broadcasting when I was on the few smaller stations, I said to the Lord, “If you will give me a million listeners a day, I’ll make this the best radio show possible.” No sooner did I say the words that I knew what his answer would be: “Make this the best show possible, and I will give you a million listeners.”.
2.) If you’re not faithful with money (what Jesus calls “the unrighteous wealth“), you won’t be faithful with true riches. (v.11). Many of us want to be spiritual heroes, but our earthly lives are a wreck due to our own irresponsibility, particularly when it comes to handling money. Of course, God doesn’t expect all of us to be financial wizards, but he does require us to be good financial stewards, and that means paying our bills on time, being generous, and being wise.
3.) “And if you’ve not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?“ The principal again is simple: If you are irresponsible with the things that don’t belong to you, caring for them as if they were your own, then you’ll never be entrusted with things that are your own. If you don’t care take care of your parent’s car when they loan it to you, you’re not ready for a car of your own.
In summary, the bigger the stakes, the more our good habits (and bad habits) will be magnified. So, faithful with a little, faithful with much; faithful with earthy riches, faithful with spiritual riches; faithful with that which belongs to someone else, faithful with that which belongs to you.
None of this is rocket science but once again, that’s what is so wonderful about God‘s Word. It is as practical as it is profound and as pragmatic as it is penetrating. The Word of God is wise, and we do well to live by the wisdom of the Word. And the word of God destroys the entitlement mentality, giving us something far better in its place.
Dr. John Townsend wrote,
“There is a solution to entitlement, which I called the Hard Way. The Hard Way is the entitlement cure. It is a path of behaviors and attitudes that undo the negative effects of entitlement whether in ourselves or others.” This was his definition of the Hard Way: “The habit of doing what is best, rather than what is comfortable, to achieve a worthwhile outcome.“
It is the hard way that pays long-term dividends, the hard way that produces long-term fruit, the hard way that yields long-term gratification. So quit passing the buck and shirking responsibility; don’t blame others for where you find yourself today; and determine, with God’s help, to be a giver not a taker, a producer and not a drainer, one who lifts others up rather than drags them down. To quote Paul once again, “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people” (Phil. 2:14-15 NLT).
That’s our calling, that’s who we are, and that’s who our nation needs us to be. So, let’s wake up from our slumber. It’s a literally time to rise and shine.
Next Up Sun 4/14: Snippets from Saturday Nights Live Bill Maher’s comments via Brad Jersak’s book “A More Christlike God, A More Beautiful Gospel.”