Faith vs. Entitlement

Reading through the stories of Abraham and Joseph have given me a new outlook on faith.  And by faith, I mean that whole-hearted, unwavering confidence that God will do what He has promised.  That confidence that is so strong that people can see it by your actions.

When I was reading through the story of Abraham this time, I realized that he really was a foreigner in the land.  Somehow I had always pictured the Promised Land as a big, wide-open, unclaimed plot of land...with some different people groups that happened to wander through it from time to time.  But that's not quite the case.  After all, Abraham BOUGHT a piece of land to bury his wife.  He wouldn't have bought it if the land didn't belong to someone.

But Abraham walked through this land with such confidence in God's promise that I, the person reading the story several thousand years later, shared his confidence that the land was his.

So the first thing I want to solidify in your brains is this confidence in what God has promised.  By faith, Abraham traveled through this land that was to be his.  By faith, Joseph faced all the trials in Egypt, knowing that God would work through them for his good.  By faith, David trusted that God would give him the throne of Israel and he did good for his people even when he was an outcast.

But the second thing that I want to show you is that these three men knew the difference between faith and entitlement.  Entitlement grabs at something as if it is a personal affront to them if they don't get exactly what they want, when they want, and how they want.  Entitlement shouts "how dare you try to deprive me of my rights!"

Abraham walked through the land in full confidence that this land was his.  But he treated the locals with respect.  He left a place if asked to leave.  He paid money to the people who had claim to the land, in order to buy a place to bury his wife.  He didn't walk in shouting that they all needed to get off his land because God had promised it to him.  He didn't plant his feet when asked to move.  He didn't bury his wife without buying the land "because, in his mind, it belonged to him already."

Joseph had been given a dream from God that his father and mother and brothers would bow down to him.  But, when he was unfairly sold as a slave, he served his masters well.  When he was falsely accused and thrown into prison, he served the prison master to the best of his ability.  When Pharoah placed him in command, he served Pharoah and Egypt to prepare them for the coming famine.  He didn't cross his arms and refuse to work because this didn't fit into his idea of the power he felt should be his.

David was anointed king of Israel.  But he refused to take the life of Saul to secure the throne for himself.  He could have said, "The throne is now mine by right.  God says so.  Therefore I will kill this usurper!"

That is what faith is supposed to look like.  This faith is what brought Abraham out from his old land and put him in the new land.  This faith is what carried Joseph through his trials and brought him to the awesome place after many, many years.  This faith is what made David become one of the best kings in history.  It is not a passive thing.  It is not a weak thing.  It is powerful and it changes things.

But it is also not a selfish thing.  Or a thing to be brought about by our own power...or our own skills in bullying others.

And that is something cool that I've been seeing in our recent Bible study.