Everywhere, in every type of advertising, there is a new trend. No matter what the product is, the spokesman attempts to convince you to purchase the product because “You Deserve It!”
You deserve a new car. You deserve to treat yourself to dinner out. You deserve to have the best insurance company. You need to file a worker’s compensation claim because you deserve to be paid for your injury. Even my shampoo bottle says that I deserve this luxurious shampoo!
This is the new “entitlement” mentality. Our children have grown up with television ads and programs telling them they deserve a 50-inch color TV and $200 athletic shoes. That is why when they first go out into the world they can’t understand why they should have to work so hard for everything. It’s the reason many young adults still live at home with their parents.
I am old enough to remember humility. I remember when Muhammad Ali said “I am the greatest!” Everyone was shocked that he could be so boastful. It was completely out of the ordinary then for people to walk around saying how great they are. Remember the L’Oreal commercial where the actress said “… Because I’m worth it?” That was pretty brazen in that
time too. Women were not accustomed to bragging about themselves to other women. That commercial wouldn’t get the attention now that it did in the 70’s.
“Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor” (Proverbs 29:23).
Now it’s the new normal. Schools tell every child that they are the greatest. No one is allowed to receive a traditional grade indicating poor performance on a test. Sports teams don’t keep score anymore lest someone’s feelings get hurt or they were to discover they aren’t the greatest soccer player on earth – and maybe they actually need to practice.
Humbleness has taken a back seat to pride! This is one of the reasons for the divisiveness in America now. Everyone thinks they deserve better treatment than they are getting. There is no thankfulness for the blessings that we already have. Everyone wants more, more, more.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24).
You don’t deserve it, but God freely gives it.