The moment a believer thinks that he is entitled to his desires or that somehow God owes him, he has lost touch with gratitude. When a person loses touch with gratitude, the importance of the relationship with God has also been lost. When anything else becomes more important to a person than God is, he has started to serve an idol. When an individual places more value on another person than the Lord, he has set another god before him. The soul becomes impoverished when placing greater worth on personal desires than the relationship with God. With that comes a poverty mentality that says, “It is never enough.” Worst still, it says, “God is not enough.”
The danger of over focusing on what we do is that we may lose sight of our relationship. After time, it would be easy to fall into the trap of expecting God to give or do something because we performed. The idea that a person should be blessed because he prays or gives puts a premium on what he does; and not what Jesus did. A sign that we are losing proper focus is irritation or anger. If we get angry with God because He did not give us what we wanted or did not do something we expected, we will have lost our Way. When demand replaces gratitude, then we embrace the world instead of the Kingdom.
Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ . . . (KJV). God does reward obedience; however, we cannot earn His rewards. If we think we earned a right to anything, we became hired servants or wage earners, instead of being a child of God. If we are joint heirs with Christ, the Kingdom of God already belongs to us, what more could we possibly want? Luke 12:32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom (KJV). If then, we are the children of God our desires should center on the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything we do or desire should be the result of our relationship. This points to delighting ourselves in Him, Who in turn gives us the desires of our heart (see Psalm 37:4). The question is: what are those desires?
Sometimes people forget that the Father entitled them to become sons and daughters of God by receiving Jesus Christ (see John 1:12). They forget that by His grace they were saved through faith and not by their works (see Ephesians 2:8-9). They lose touch that the Father loves to freely bless His children and that they cannot earn those blessings. They forget that all these things come through Jesus Christ, and He only is worthy to receive all things. The only reason we are worthy is that He made us worthy by the shedding of His precious Blood. What does that mean? We are entitled to be grateful!
