WORTHINESS vs. ENTITLEMENT

 

In a lawless society many confuse, twist and pervert “free-will” with personal liberty.  Liberties come with a cost that most are not willing to pay and one’s actions have consequences to self and others.  Ask a veteran the cost of liberty/freedom as they freely and willingly serve(d) to protect the very liberties you proclaim and desire.  Everything comes with a cost, the problem remains when others pay the cost for your “free-will”. 

 

We are all worthy to receive Christ Jesus. We must embrace that worthiness in Christ Jesus, however the truth is many will not embrace Christ Jesus.  Society has twisted, manipulated and perverted “worthiness” into “entitlement”. I am all for helping people truly in need, down and out and in need of assistance but we must also assist them in becoming self sufficient and empowered.  So many people are struggling with severe issues of rejection, abuse and trauma which inhibit their sense of worthiness to become self sufficient.  These people may very well need counseling and spiritual assistance along with provisional assistance until they can become self sufficient.  My focus is on those which are healthy and able to work and not those people that become unemployed, physically/medically challenged, etc.  

 

We must remember what is witnessed/manifested in the natural is first birthed in the Spirit.  A short time ago the Lord spoke to me and said to me just as society has perverted worthiness with entitlement so have many whom preach, teach and proclaim to follow Christ Jesus.  

 

Our passion, motivation and free will to advance the Kingdom of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ must be birthed, manifested and maintained abiding in the genuine reciprocated love of Christ.  The love of Christ is compelling, motivating, passionate and pure energy motivating us to share the love of Christ with others.  The Agape love of Christ is moving, alive and sustaining and His grace and mercy is sufficient.

 

While it is true that Jesus desires all of mankind to have salvation our worthiness is not entitlement.  True salvation comes at a cost and Christ Jesus paid the price.  Baptism reflects a death and resurrection.  Have you truly died to self to be fully resurrected in Christ?  Attempting to obtain salvation without making Jesus Lord renders no real conversion or sanctification.  

 

Galatians 2:20 (AMP)

20 I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

 

We must remember salvation is a confession of the heart and not to be reduced to words without commitment, action and perseverance.  

 

 

Salvation through Christ Jesus if a “free gift” and not by the works of the flesh because Jesus paid the price, yet each of us must work out our own salvation.

 

Philippians 2:12–16 (AMP)

12 Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).

13 [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

14 Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [against God] and questioning and doubting [among yourselves],

15 That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish (faultless, unrebukable) in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], among whom you are seen as bright lights (stars or beacons shining out clearly) in the [dark] world,

16 Holding out [to it] and offering [to all men] the Word of Life, so that in the day of Christ I may have something of which exultantly to rejoice and glory in that I did not run my race in vain or spend my labor to no purpose.

 

It’s the Christmas season and people buy and exchange gifts with family, friends and loved ones.  Why overlook the real meaning of Christmas and the birth of the Messiah by distorting/eliminating the Cross on Calvary to merely focus on the gift of salvation and redemption overlooking the price Jesus paid for our redemption?   Every gift comes with a price that others have paid; don’t let the death of Christ be in vain.

 

John 3:16–17 (AMP)

16 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

17 For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

 

 

This Christmas even if people do not give you a gift or send you a greeting card let us remember the greater gift is the love you hold for them within your very own heart.  Just as Jesus, we can love them first.  

 

1 John 4:10 (AMP)

10 In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.

 

1 John 4:19 (AMP)

19 We love Him, because He first loved us.