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I value each person who reads this blog. Therefore, I thought it might be insightful to you if I shared how I process thoughts or questions as they come to me as I read scripture.

I was reading Romans 1:18-29 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. … 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity …”  (NIV)

The thought then occurred to me, beyond God’s infinite love, as it relates to us, it seems love is a two-way street. Jesus said, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (NLT2). The above passage teaches we are the ones who limit how much love we receive from God.

It brought to my mind the Detachment Disorder, a condition where a traumatic experience leaves a child incapable of loving, or narcissists who are so self-focused they cannot genuinely love others. Could it be that God longs to love us far more, but we are so caught up with ourselves, our worries, dreams, rationalism, pleasures of life, etc. to receive of His infinite love.

By giving our utmost to Him, we unlock our capacity to experience His endless affection. This works the same in a marriage. A spouse’s ability to give love is ultimately constrained by how much their partner is capable of receiving it. In other words, if we know a spouse or friend genuinely and deeply loves or cherishes us, we are much more able to selflessly do far more things for and with them. If we sense a person does not cherish us, it limits how we can express our love to them.

In principle, to the point we experientially receive God’s love and totally cast ourselves upon Him, to that point, God will be able to express His love to us. The more we discover of His infinite love and respond to it, the deeper and more intimate our relationship will be. The point is, if we want to experience God’s love, we must express our unselfish love for Him by seeking to know what the Bible teaches us about Him and His love and care for us.

My takeaway from this concept is a stronger motivation to express the selfless love in my heart for God in my daily life. I have experientially found that the more I have unselfishly devoted my worship and dependence upon Him, the more delight and gratification I have experienced. Reflecting on this concept compels me to increase my love and devotion to Him. How might pondering this concept affect you?

Have you ever learned something new about a subject you thought you understood well? A sense of energy comes from uncovering a new truth, whether it’s an entirely fresh manifestation of God’s truth or a deeper insight into something you were already aware of. This provides a more thorough grasp of my existing knowledge.

Knowing Jesus Christ created everything is like being in the shallow end of a pool. You enter the knee-high part when you process, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. Colossians 1:16 (ESV) Think of what He created.  1) He created ALL things, both good and bad dominions, or principalities or powers. That is mind-bending! Isaiah the prophet wrote, “I (God) form the light and create darkness, I make peace [national well-being] and I create [physical] evil (calamity); I am the Lord, Who does all these things. Isaiah 45:7 (AMP). The text then states, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17 (ESV) Additionally, the text says, “… through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:20 (ESV)

This sounds like before creation, the Trinitarian God desired to show amazing grace and mercy. So, they strategized to create humans who would separate from Himself. One of them would limit Himself and become fully human and be crucified in order to give grace and mercy that would reconcile fallen humanity to Himself. Try to imagine yourself in Jesus’ humanity position, discovering as He matured, this redemption plan and His role in it. As He grew in understanding, He understood enough that He had to learn how to deny His mind, will, and emotions and follow His spirit, through which the Spirit would empower Him to develop. Jesus clarified how He had learned to function by saying, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing.” John 5:19 (NLT2)” John 5:19 (TEV) Honestly, I highly admire Jesus’ humanity. If He could learn to live that way, the Spirit can help me to do it too.

The Spirit planted in Jesus’ spirit a passion to reconcile all humanity to Himself. While He had done absolutely nothing wrong, He loved us as His Father loved us. That is so amazing! He also was made to understand that not all humanity would accept His unbelievable, sacrificial gift. Imagine paying the supreme sacrifice, knowing that most would not receive your gift.

If understanding all this doesn’t give you a sense of the awe of Jesus Christ, you are missing out on a most profound Bible truth. It would be like not having a sense of awe when you try to count the stars in the night sky and ponder just how much fun God was having when He created the Big and Little Dipper. Awe is often an overwhelming emotion of stunning admiration.

Frankly, I am in awe of the humanity of Jesus learning and living out such a profound God-given assignment. It makes me know if I seek to have more encounters with Him and cooperate with Him, He will transform my humanity and keep transforming me until I am in His full stature. Paul wrote, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29 (ESV) I eagerly rejoice as He reshapes me into thinking, behaving, responding and living as the humanity of Jesus walked on this earth. How about you?

I was recently invited to be part of a research project by a person with a PhD. The person who gave me more guidelines about the project repeatedly wrote, “If I don’t hear from you within a certain amount of time, I will assume you don’t want to take part in the project.” I understood that statement to be setting the boundary for participating in the project—fair enough. Its repetition implied I hadn’t caught it the first time. I questioned the reason behind the frequent repetition. I assumed they believed I might initially miss it or that my comprehension wasn’t sharp enough to get it right away. In any case, it seemed condescending. We’re both adults, so unlike children who often need repeated instructions to remember, parents and teachers don’t typically have to repeat things multiple times.

Occasionally, my words or actions don’t reflect what I meant. It’s a great help when someone shows me my mistakes by mirroring my actions or words, so I can stop myself from making them again. Therefore, I tried to respond in a kind way that, while the person probably didn’t intend it to come out that way, their repetition felt condescending.

However, after I had done so, I second guessed myself and felt I had maybe violated Paul’s admonition of “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 (ESV) He again wrote, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:13 (ESV) Should I have ‘held my tongue’ and absorbed the unnecessary repetition?

“Bearing” doesn’t mean that we learn to “put up” with people while resentment festers under a forced smile. Our collaboration with God enables us to develop affection for people, idiosyncrasies included. To bear the burden of another person means to accept and even affirm it, and in bearing with it, breaking through to the point where we take it simply as an idiosyncrasy. In other words, one way to bear one another well is to love one another well enough to hold our tongues. After all, for the most part, a bitten tongue beats a loose one.

This raises the question, could it be that the health of a Christian community hangs on the lips of those within the community? Thoughtless words spoken can be misunderstood and damage trust. But we can also be too soft-hearted to stand up to other believers in certain circumstances. (Mattew 18:15-17; Galatians 6:1) We need to love enough to confront. There is a fine line between another person’s statement simply being offensive and it being totally out of line with Christlikeness. Discretion and seeking the Spirit’s guidance must be a significant part of the equation.

In my case, I’m unsure how the other person perceived my attempt to reflect their feelings, but my good intentions with my ‘loose lips’ may have compromised their sense of security or offended them. I hope that’s not the case, but if it is, when I talk to them again, I will apologize. From my perspective, a clear conscience maintained through humility is preferable to pride that prevents the correction of inappropriate words. Where do you draw the line between constructively being a mirror and speaking the truth in love?

God’s grace is the most impacting gift a person can receive. We might say His ‘gracelets’ (small droplets of His grace) come in innumerable ways. It’s likely I receive more than I’m conscious of.

As for me, I am most grateful for each and every pack of grace I receive. I’m sure that is true for each of us. This makes it more interesting to read that Moses was interested in receiving even more of His grace. He requested of God, ^“Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”  Exodus 33:13 ESV.

Knowing God as well as he did, he understood that the path to receiving more grace (favor) from Him was to discover more of His ways. His ways refer to how He deals with us. His ways entail what he wants to do. The ways of God are the choices He makes concerning us. His ways are higher than our ways. (Isaiah55:9) He deals with this person one way and with another person a different way. His ways are what He deems best in each situation. We will never be able to learn all His ways, but we can learn more of them. Why is that so important?

Moses believed that understanding God’s actions was the quickest route to a deeper relationship with Him. Experiential knowledge of Him, as described by Paul, leads to spiritual maturity, which is the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) Experiential knowledge of Him is the pipeline through which we receive the most possible gracelets from God! Furthermore, each such encounter with Him changes us on the inside.

How, then, might we learn more of God’s ways? We must first experience His presence, which gives us a fresh revelation of Him (another gracelet). According to Ezekiel 36:25-27, this would look like what we experienced in our salvation or regeneration. Saul/Paul’s salvation experience on the road to Damascus offers the most vivid effect of a fresh revelation or an encounter with God. It is transforming. An encounter with God, no matter how intense it might be, is transforming! The more we gaze upon Him, the more we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

I have found the most consistent time I experience an encounter with Him is when I deeply reflect on verses in the Bible, especially when I have to wrestle with the Spirit to seek to find answers to better understand something it says. When He reveals a meaning to me, it normally discloses or at least reminds me of one of His ways. That is why I am such an advocate of asking God hard questions about what He has inspired to be written in scripture. There is absolutely nothing I thrive more on than encounters with Him, no matter when or through what means they may occur. Each experience reminds me of the request Moses made of God—PLEASE God, show me more and more of Your ways so that I can know You more intimately. The shadow effect of those times is receiving more of His grace!

I honestly want each and every person I know whether, it be in person or through something I write, to encounter God in their own personal way. I know it will to some degree literally transform whoever leans hard into seeking an authentic encounter with the Almighty God! I am certain from what the Bible teaches, He is more passionate about meeting with each of us than we are about meeting with Him. It is our level of seriousness to encounter Him that limits meeting with Him. He knows when we have surrendered it all just to connect with Him.

I used to think integrity was primarily truth-telling, but I discovered truth-telling is only the tip of the iceberg. Integrity involves the entirety of a person, wholeness. We would have to be hard-pressed to eat a fruit that has bruises or has a worm in it. Integrity includes internal consistency of honesty as well as moral and ethical character. Enron and other prominent figures in sports or religion have failed due to a lack of integrity. Trust is quickly destroyed by a flaw that was tolerated in some aspect of a person’s inner being.

Each of our lives includes all of who we are in our workplace, home, church, privately or publicly.

How can we become people of integrity? It naturally happens as we give the Holy Spirit full access to every part of our lives. If the soul were a house, this would mean allowing Him into every room. It’s possible to happily give Jesus access to some rooms but put little Do Not Enter signs on others. Do we ask Him to supervise our finances, political views, family room, or where we do our devotions? We must remind ourselves Jesus’ original audience identified themselves as God’s people, yet Jesus described them as “… so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness!” Luke 11:39 (NLT2) Groups of Christians can do this too, posting “Keep Out” signs to block Jesus from entering culturally cherished beliefs, practices, and goals.

While I am certain I have blind areas in my life, I try repeatedly to scrutinize my life to see if I am tolerating a wrong attitude, contempt, deception, unhealthy manipulation, unforgiveness, covetousness of any sort to embed itself in my thinking or motivations. Believe me, it keeps me humble, and I am not so foolish as to think I don’t have blind spots that I inadvertently overlook. Yet it is my desire to work with the Spirit to root out my flaws. I must depend on the Sanctifier to purify me. The most recent area He and I have been working on is trusting in myself rather than fully trusting in God. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (NLT2) I have been astonished at how often I default to leaning on my own understanding instead of His guidance and oversight.

On the night of his betrayal, Jesus held up his cup and said, “Drink ye all of it…” That word “all” can be translated as whole. I don’t know if by “all” Jesus meant “all of you drink” or “drink it all.” But I do know he drank his cup to the last drop. He is our model of integrity.

If I ever hope to be like Jesus, I must take the entire cup He offers, whether it is bitter (like Connie’s death) or sweet. I want to freely trust Him in every nook and cranny of my personal and public way of thinking. I have recently learned from experience the incredible peace of God that resulted when I cast all my cares upon Him. His way is always better than mine in every dimension of my life. His way is wholeness, not fragmentation.

If you are not experiencing all the peace of God in your life, I highly recommend that you invite Him into every area of your life, so your integrity is in more areas than truth telling.

The humbling aspects of looking back, both good and bad, become apparent when one reaches my age. I am more aware of the grace and mercy that God has bestowed upon me. I have been a part of Him working literal miracles through me. My self-awareness of my own limitations makes me feel humbled by these achievements.

 

I am also able to see when I foolishly leaned on my own understanding and regretfully brought pain and suffering. I’m also sure I unknowingly limited what God wanted to do in and through me. I’ve often said, I wish I had known about this 50 years ago!!

I recently did some Bible reflection on the book Isaiah the prophet wrote. Chapter 48 seems to reflect sad grief on God’s part. Notice with me; “16 Come closer and listen to this. From the beginning, I have told you plainly what would happen. And now the Sovereign Lord and his Spirit have sent me with this message.  17 This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow [alt: for you to profit or do what is best for you]. 18 Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea. 19 Your descendants would have been like the sands along the seashore— too many to count! There would have been no need for your destruction, or for cutting off your family name.’” Isaiah 48:16–19 NLT.

I have been in the Philippines for the last 3 months. When I arrived on January 1, I was stunned by the level of peace of God I sensed.

To me, although Connie and I have faced countless serious life difficulties, I have also consciously found and felt God’s peace throughout our lives.  His peace has served as my primary guide for many years. It allowed me to experience a multitude of divine interventions. Yet, my recent Philippine experience was notably more extreme. If God’s peace on Earth can be this powerful, I pondered how much greater it must be in Heaven. When I pondered the above passage, it messed with my thinking. It made me wonder just how much more of God’s gifts I had missed out on in my earlier decades of my efforts to follow God.

It then struck me how much those less committed to finding God have missed and continue to do so. I grieved for their losses, and mine, as God was mourning for the people of Israel. Could it be that you may very well have also missed out on so many blessings you could have had if you had been more intimate with God through the years? Does it also make you regretful?

But let’s remind ourselves, our life is not over. All of us may have missed out on so many blessings God wanted to give us. However, by altering our daily lives to more closely align with God’s word, we can still experience more of what Paul was inspired to write. “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Ephesians 3:20 NLT. We can’t change our past, but we can improve our future. How? By taking initiative to better align ourselves with what God has already told us.

After serving as a youth pastor in Oregon, wonderful friends and youth group sponsors had a bright son who, after graduation, attended a very reputable, conservative seminary, one I certainly would have recommended. But to my surprise and chagrin, before graduating, he became very cynical about God, and after graduation ended up turning away from God instead of growing closer to him.

While pastoring, a promising teenage couple committed to serving Christ were very careful to have their obvious devotions in the church parking lot. They married and both went to a very reputable Bible college in a nearby state to pursue ministry. After 3 years, they became antagonistic to the Christian faith and walked away from serving God. How can this be??

I recently volunteered to serve as a pastor-at-large in an international seminary. With a faculty of PhD-holding missionaries, the seminary focused on the selfless love and service of students aiming for careers in ministry unto God. The seminary’s student-body president publicly asked me, how can a student with the high stress of studying theology and writing papers also maintain a passionate heart for God? That was a legitimate question!! Could a person get so lost in studying the Bible he or she overlooks its intended message? Jesus said that had happened to the Pharisees. (John 5.39) It all depends upon the motive for searching it.

Solomon wrote an interesting verse. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she will promote you; she will bring you honor when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory she will deliver to you.” Prov. 4:7-9 ESV. Could it be Solomon had actually put wisdom above his love for God? The way he writes in the following verses, it certainly would appear so. If so, this could have been a major contributor to him turning away from God’s laws and bringing demise on himself and Israel.

It appears that the overwhelming power of our sinful nature creates a significant mental split between wisdom and God. This is a deep and meaningful concept that deserves consideration.  Unless a person is diligent to maintain prayerful meditation on the Word, seeking to find out how it reveals more of who God is and how we must respond to that revelation, the sin nature will distort wisdom and God, just as appears to have happened to Solomon. The moment we put priority of whatever sort—Bible study, ministry to others, family, finances, and the like—above intimacy with God, it is only a matter of time before our relationship with Him begins the fossilizing process.

We need to consider if anything has diverted us from giving God our full devotion. It’s possible we won’t be able to eliminate that ‘something’. Let’s re-evaluate our diminishing values and focus on seeking His kingdom instead of those well-intentioned “little foxes” that are harming our close relationship with our King. “Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!” (Song of Solomon 2:15 NLT)

It prompts me to ask if my participation in righteous actions might be inadvertently consuming the precious time I dedicate to spiritual wrestling and discerning God’s word. I’ve noticed that these grappling times are the times I most clearly perceive His whispers to my spirit.

In the last several years, I have fallen deeper in love with God than I ever have been. I don’t have the capacity to make that happen, so it has not been due to my creativity! It has only been because of God’s rich mercy. All I have done was to watch in amazement what God has been doing within me.

After 74 years of excellent health, Connie, my wonderful wife of nearly 57 years, was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) with isolated del (5q), a fatal blood disease. We were told her death could occur within a few months or maybe up to 3 years. It would be mild to say this put us in shock. This launched us on a spiritual learning curve.

Since we both strongly believed in divine healing, after much prayer, we both sensed we should not try to be God’s advisor. While we continued to tell God our preferences, we trusted in His love and wisdom more than our own. When she graduated into her reward slightly over two years ago, I confess, the grieving process was very difficult. However, I grew in my understanding of who God is and who I am, which resulted in greater intimacy with Him.

During this time, I increasingly surrendered more and more of my rights to Him. As I did so, my sense of freedom and inner peace increased. Solomon’s words “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 ESV became much more real to me. Paul’s statement, “You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’—but not everything is good for you. You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’—but not everything is beneficial. Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others.” 1 Cor. 10:23-24 NLT, took on new meaning to me. I have found that the more I yield to Christ, the more I will be a “conqueror”. It is one of heaven’s strange laws that if I resign all rights of possession to Jesus Christ, I begin that very moment to possess all that I have surrendered.

Oswald Chambers said, “The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” Paul explained Jesus died so “that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them” (2Co 5:15, NIV). The cross of Christ—and its power—is fulfilled in me the moment I say yes to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over me.

I was invited to volunteer as a pastor-at-large at a seminary in the Philippines. That step would be a significant one for a 79-year-old widower in less-than-perfect health. With no other motivation than sensing it was the right thing to do, I made it happen, leaving it up to God to bail me out if I was wrong. If I were to die there, I would die.

After arriving, I experienced an uncanny level of the peace of God that I had never experienced. He gave me such grace in the eyes of faculty and students that despite being among people from 36 different nations with all their dialects, I was precisely where God wanted me for that time in my life. It literally left me in awe for my three-month stint. Our rights are not as important as they first appear. What new challenge has God presented for you to take on?

I’m slowly working through Isaiah, reflecting deeply as I go. Today, I wept as I was able to empathize with God’s feelings toward the Jews, His children.

Isaiah 48:12-13 suggests that God had a felt-need to reintroduce Himself to His chosen. They had been committing spiritual adultery with Him through idol worship, despite their professed worship of Him. That deplorable way of thinking had been perpetuated consistently for ages, some seasons worse than others. Thus, in this scenario, God allowed them to be taken to Babylon. He then told them he was going to use Cyrus to deliver them from Babylon. They were offended that God would use a heathen to deliver them, so they essentially ignored Him to the point He had to talk to them as He did here.

My mind and heart pondered this question. Is it possible that God has provided a blessing or protection for my family and/or me through an avenue I didn’t appreciate, so I unknowingly withdrew from Him? Is it possible that God permitted the death of my spouse, a financial setback, or a debilitating illness (like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”) or even a physical ailment such as Jacob’s hip injury to bring good into my life? Is it possible He lets a couple encounter marital strife to jolt them awake or detach them from a life path that’s gone astray? Should I retract my love and devotion to Him because I was offended by the way He chose to affect a change in my life or in someone else?

It is unfortunate that we so often forget God is sovereign and can choose to do things we can’t imagine Him doing. The God we serve must not be constrained by the distorted ‘god’ we’ve sculpted in our image.

It was through the same prophet who recorded the said passage above, who also was inspired to write, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV.

When this reaction occurs, I don’t intentionally distance myself from Him, though I believe it happens subconsciously. How might our holy, sovereign God feel about my resentful reactions to His life decisions? Only God knows how this has happened in my life. But I can say that after my wife and I stopped wanting our own way and let Him work according to His wisdom and love for everyone’s good, I underwent a remarkable change. I’ve never known such profound inner peace and boundless joy as I do now. I’m completely certain this experience wasn’t created by anything I could do.

I am not so foolish as to think a person must endure the loss of something so precious as a spouse of nearly 57 years in order to receive God’s special grace. I am at ease in saying that when you permit God to be the supreme ruler in your life, He will delight in you with His love. I hope you won’t have to live 79 years to grasp that understanding of God. My suggestion is that you stand on my shoulders, surrender the box containing your limited god to His sovereign hands, and thereby enjoy a more intimate knowledge of God.

One of Jesus’ parables has bothered me for decades. It suggests God values status over freedom, which is inconsistent with how the rest of the Bible depicts Him. This parable reads, “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Luke 17:7-10 (ESV).

Yes, the culture when Jesus told the parable was different from ours. However, we must also remember that the ‘incidental props’ or characters in a parable are not the message; they are only used to communicate the spiritual intent of the message. Could it be that this parable was about the intangible yet deplorable attitude of entitlement?

In our culture, the servant/slavery motif first grabs our attention because we are so repulsed by that ideology. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul made it clear He considered himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ. This should make us think twice before jumping to a conclusion.

What is deeply embedded in our culture that we overlook is an entitlement mindset. Could it be that we misinterpret what God plans or does by thinking all of it is done for ‘me’—something very self-centered, even egotistic. In reality, entitlement is repulsive and deplorable in God’s eyes. It is what destroyed King David. He thought as such a strong king, he was entitled to get whatever he wanted. This led to his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband.

When we interpret Christ’s crucifixion as being just about us, it leads to us having an entitlement attitude towards all the rest God provides for us. Isn’t it noteworthy that Jesus said nothing specific in His prayer in the garden about our sins? He only references His Father’s will. Indeed, His death and resurrection paid for our sins, but could it be we were only beneficiaries of God’s much greater purpose of glorifying Himself? (note Ephesians 2:7,) It is when we think or feel ourselves to be the center of attention, our sin nature quickly adopts an entitlement attitude.

What is remarkable about Jesus’ parable is the absence of entitlement in the servants. They didn’t even hint at their rights or what they deserved. Is this the attitude that everyone in God’s kingdom increasingly takes on? Are all our endeavors undertaken exclusively to glorify our King, making His glory our foremost concern?

Have you experienced the sense of offense that someone else was elevated above you for a position of authority? Have you sensed that your ‘rights’ are being abused or ignored, and it put you in a funk? Or perhaps you’ve felt your acts of service went unnoticed. Are those feelings a subtle sign of entitlement instead of gratitude for just being a part of the accomplishment? Isn’t just being a lowly servant in God’s kingdom work privilege enough to bring you joy and fulfillment?