A few weeks ago during the super bowl, a crowd of friends and family members came together to watch the big game at our house.\u00a0 Not long into the game, the Super Bowl was no longer what everyone was excited about.\u00a0 Rather, everyone was now excited about seeing some of the knew commercials during the breaks.\u00a0 It was about halfway through the second quarter when Sprint aired one of their new iPhone 5S “Truly Unlimited Data” plan commercials.\u00a0 As the commercial came to an end, you would have thought someone lit a bomb in the middle of the room. Go ahead and watch this 31 second clip. <\/p>\n
With out hesitation, half of the room erupted saying they hated the commercial.\u00a0 After a moment of silence, a bold or maybe unwise family member in the room said, “Well, it is our right”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Rights are all around us.\u00a0 Especially here in the States.\u00a0 Some rights are incredibly good, like human rights.\u00a0 On December 10th, 1948, the Untied Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; these 30 rights written in the form of articles form the basic premise for how all of humanity should be treated. Like article number 5, No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.\u00a0 Now lets be honest,\u00a0 the rights that most in the U.S. speak of have nothing to do with human rights, but rather individual entitlements<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This past week while reading Bad Religion by Ross Douthat I was struck by the refashioning of Christianity to suit an age of abundance<\/strong>.\u00a0 Douthat said it this way, “By linking the spread of the gospel to the habits and mores of entrepreneurial capitalism, and by explicitly baptizing the pursuit of worldly gain, prosperity theology has helped millions of believers reconcile their religious faith with their nation’s seemingly unbiblical wealth and un-Christian consumer culture”.\u00a0 No longer is American Christianity even about Jesus, salvation or even kingdom, but rather rights. Or better yet, entitlements.\u00a0 So how have these entitlements emerged in our form of Christianity?\u00a0 <\/p>\n The Right to be blessed…<\/strong> Bigger is almost always defined as better.\u00a0 Yet, most of us know this isn’t the case.\u00a0 Bigger is often, just bigger. More headaches, larger budgets, more programs, better sound systems, the need for fog machines (I had to \ud83d\ude42 ).\u00a0 Somewhere we lost the perspective\u00a0 that blessing may come in the form of cancer, loss of a spouse, simplicity, loss of job and even your church becoming smaller.\u00a0 Ed Dobson, who was a mega church pastor in the 80’s and 90’s here in the states was diagnosed with ALS in the early 2000’s.\u00a0 Recently Ed has been part of a\u00a0 film series called Ed’s Story.\u00a0 In this video series Ed speaks of the desire he had all of his life to live and be like Christ. However, it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with ALS that he truly began to do what is important.\u00a0 Ed’s ministry went from speaking to thousands on a weekly basis, to\u00a0 meeting with the one. Ed recently has said, “I have never been more blessed in life”. To many of us blessing is a right, and then we define it from an egocentric self entitled personal fulfillment.<\/p>\n The Right to control our surroundings…\u00a0<\/strong> We like placing our investment in a market which will give us good return on our money.\u00a0 Most Americans believe they have the right to make great money in their portfolios, have a nice house and three car garage, retire at a convenient age and travel whenever the desire arises.\u00a0 We have become masters at control management, minimizing risk and aversion to pain.\u00a0 Our churches have simply become the place where many facilitate their religious needs within this controlled environment. We give in the offering plate, so we have the right to have a say in the building project!\u00a0 We serve faithfully ever week, therefore we have the right to control how the ministry is run! Are these rights or entitlements?<\/strong><\/p>\n We have created a religion using the name of Jesus, where we risk nothing, give up nothing<\/strong>, and cater to our own egocentric self-serving needs. Where the greatest possible act you could perform is to become a good citizen?\u00a0 Something has gone desperately wrong in our definition of blessing.<\/p>\n In II Corinthians 11:23-27<\/strong>, Paul speaks of a different way, “Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked”.\u00a0 I believe Paul defines blessing a little different than most Americans.<\/p>\n As Sprint says,<\/strong><\/p>\n No metering, no throttling, and no overages.<\/strong><\/p>\n I have the right to be unlimited!<\/strong><\/p>\n What have we been asking from God?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Have we been asking for the embodiment of the gospel through suffering or our own entitlements?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few weeks ago during the super bowl, a crowd of friends and family members came together to watch the big game at our house.\u00a0 Not long into the game, the Super Bowl was no longer what everyone was excited about.\u00a0 Rather, everyone was now excited about seeing some of the knew commercials during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,7],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-douthat","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}