Do entitled Christians make you want to avoid church?

Do entitled Christians make you want to avoid church? What if you go to church to serve God. And you run into a bunch of people who feel like they’re entitled to have the church serve them? Does that turn you off? Or does it make you want to be like them?

It doesn’t feel like serving and entitlement should be used together in this context.

Sure, there are “entitlements”, like welfare for poor people. But that’s completely different from what we’re looking at here.

God has no need for that kind of entitlement.

And He makes no promise of any entitlement of that kind to us.

Therefore, it seems there’s no reason anyone at a Christian church should have any kind of entitled feeling from the church.

There are even more reasons why feelings of entitlement don’t belong in church. For instance, there’s love. We’ll get into that as we go along.

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Conclusion – Do entitled Christians make you want to avoid church?

Jesus really gave us that message when His disciples asked Him which of them will be the greatest.

Who Will Be the Greatest? – Luke

^{9:46-48 pp — Mt 18:1-5
9:46-50 pp — Mk 9:33-40}

^{Lk 9:46} An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. ⁴⁷ Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. ⁴⁸ Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.”

^{Lk 9:49} “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”

^{Lk 9:50} “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

That’s probably too much to ask of entitled person, let alone an entitled Christian. That is, too much to ask until they truly decide to follow Jesus.

So, if you go to a church and encounter an entitled Christian, there are some choices. One choice might to be leave. However, you could also maybe try to help them to become a serving Christian. Find another group to join. Hang in there for a while, become part of the general community, and start a new group.

The thing is, don’t just leave Christianity because of encounters with entitled Christians. After all, none of us was born a fully complete follower of Jesus. It is a process. It takes time. Support. Encouragement. And those things all come from others who are further along in their journey of faith.

Of course, if you’re new to being a Christian, you’ll naturally take more than you give to the community. But, having said that, we should all go in willing to give back when we can.