In my previous post, I began a series addressing our sense of entitlement. However it has occurred to me that perhaps you are under the opinion that while everyone else you know has a false sense of entitlement; but you being a healthy and mature Christian do not possess a sense of entitlement at all. If that is the case, then any discussion regarding the sin of “being Entitled” would fall on deaf ears. So before I proceed further into the issue, now would be an appropriate time for a little self examination. To that end I have borrowed an "Entitlement Quiz" for you to take.
For each of the fifteen statements below, mark a number from one to seven which gauges your personal feeling about the statement (one being the most disagreement and seven being the most agreement). Please answer the questions below using the following scale:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
Do not spend too much time on any one item. Also please respond in terms of how you actually feel as opposed to how you think you should feel. Try to avoid using the neutral response if possible, because let's be honest you are not neutral on any of these.
______ 1. I deserve respect from others.
______ 2. I demand good service in a restaurant.
______ 3. My closest friends owe me loyalty.
______ 4. I expect fairness from others.
______ 5. I'm owed a good-paying job for my abilities.
______ 6. People should treat me the way I treat them.
______ 7. When I do something nice for someone, I expect them to do something nice for me.
______ 8. I deserve a "thank you" when I hold a door open for someone or let someone ahead of me in traffic.
______ 9. People should listen to what I have to say.
______ 10. I often feel "owed" for things I have done.
______ 11. Other people have told me I expect too much.
______ 12. All in all, I deserve a good life.
______ 13. I am entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
______ 14. I find myself getting angry inside when others don't do things for me they said they would.
______ 15. My children owe me cooperation and obedience for all the sacrifices I have made for them.
Add all of the numbers of your fifteen responses, and then divide that total by fifteen. The number you are left with will show you on the scale how convinced you are that you are "entitled" to certain things.
If your score is from one to three, you probably are not expecting much from other people in the way of gratitude, approval and response. As such, while you may be disappointed when such responses aren't forthcoming, the sense of disappointment does not build in you to the point of feeling resentful.
If you scored a four, you are showing signs that a sense of entitlement is becoming dangerous to you.
If you scored from five to seven, you are probably a person who is carrying a lot of internal anger over the fact that people fail to give you what you feel entitled to. If this is the case, it is time you begin to readjust your expectations. You need to remind yourself that you are "owed" absolutely nothing for all you do and that God has given everyone the choice to fly in the face of what you want. You need to remember that God’s expectation and challenge is for you to do things for people because it's the "RIGHT" thing to do, not because you can earn "frequent flyer points" that you can cash in whenever you want.
Painful as it is to acknowledge, in life you are not entitled to anything, not even the next breath you are hoping to take, everything is a gift. Don't let that truth get too far away from you in life, or you may just receive what you are entitled to in death.
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