Legalism

    This might be a deep one. When it comes to the formation of our souls, I think it is more complex than a formula or a list of rules to follow. It is more complex than reading the Bible for an hour every day, praying a certain amount, and being the "good" Christian you are meant to be. Is there really a formula we need to follow to be a "good enough" Christian? How do we do this faith thing "good enough"? 

    There was a time when I felt like I was having a slight faith crisis in my time in college. Throughout college, I have been hit with some hard faith questions. Do I even believe in God? (Mostly was asked during my freshman year), and how do I do this faith thing right? (Asked during my sophomore year). This was followed by a hard season of grief and feeling as if God was disappointed in me during my Junior year. In this blog, I am going to zero in on the question asked during my sophomore year "How do I do this faith thing right?" This question got me pondering basically my whole approach to my faith and I felt like I was doing it wrong all along during the time I was wrestling with this question. 

    I wasn't sure what worship was supposed to look like. I was looking for a church during this time, but I did not know if I was even at the right church. I did not know if I was living the way God wanted me to. I felt confused and like I was wrong. I had a long list in my mind of things I wanted to fix about myself well before this year. I was tired, and I grew skeptical during this season. I knew God was real, and in my heart, I wanted to do the faith right. This went well into the first few months of my Junior year as well right before I entered the season of grief I was in. I became highly critical of myself, and I remember wishing during this time that I could just be how I was with God as a child. 

    When I was a kid, I remember writing a letter to God. I was going to put it in one of my dad's envelopes and I addressed it to heaven. I remember one time driving out with my dad and a little sunlight was peeking through the clouds. It was exactly how I imagined God taking someone into heaven. During my season of striving and skepticism, I missed this part of my childhood faith. I missed my imagination and I missed how I related to God as a child. 

    Legalism is what makes us think we have to stick to a list of rules to earn the salvation that Jesus has already given us. Legalism is about us. It is about what we are doing to earn the salvation from God. It is about elevating ourselves through our works to the place of God in order to earn the favor he already has for us. It is having a heart to please God instead of being with God. When we just sit with God in his grace, we sit in his forgiveness of our shortcomings as well as his favor for us. Where legalism or even striving to get a certain feeling or expectation met in worship is "me-centered", worship of the Lord is God-centered. At church, we talk about worship being the heartfelt sacrificial response we have to something. How are we responding to the presence of the Lord? 

    I learned many things going through a hard season as much as I did not like feeling wrong. I learned that it really is ok to not know everything about my faith. I learned that where the Pharisee saw his righteousness, the tax collector saw his sinfulness 

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14 (NIV).

I learned I would rather have the heart posture of humility and understand that I am a sinner saved by grace before God than think that I am always right. In a world where we want to prove ourselves to be right all the time, we don't like to admit when we are wrong.  Legalism is a way that people try to prove they are right. Legalism is checking off every standard we come up with for being a good Christian.

    The Pharisees had thousands of rules they tried to keep to be righteous. They had so many standards they had to meet coming up with them themselves from interpretations from the Mosaic covenant. Do you know what God's standard was though? 

    ABSOLUTE PERFECTION. Not even the thousands of rules the Pharisees thought of could get them to the absolute perfection required by God. The rules could not get them to God because even the smallest of sins in our eyes separates us from the Holy God. For us to have lived with God in eternity, we had to meet the standard of perfection. Even when we meet the everyday "good Christian checklist", we still fall short of the glory of God because we aren't perfect. We still get easily angered at that person driving slow in front of us, we still have pride in ourselves that we may elevate ourselves above somebody else, or we still may engage in that sin pattern we try to stop ourselves from engaging in. The Pharisee who saw the woman pour out her perfumes on Jesus's feet still judged her worship of him. 

    Legalism being a devotion to every rule is NOT how we grow with God. The law in the Old Testament establishes something very important: that we alone could not keep the law, and that we needed a Savior. When thinking of the laws, we can be amazed at what Jesus came to fulfill. We should be amazed and grateful because that law just continued to show our sinfulness. The sin of the Israelite nation brought them into exile. What brings us to God is an invitation, not to follow a list of rules, but to a relationship with a loving faithful God who humbled himself by coming down to earth, dying on the cross, taking on the weight of sin, and defeating the bondage of death and sin so we can live in relationship with him. 

    What grows our relationship with God is similar to what happened in the prodigal son story. When the son realized that he had dishonored his father, he came ready back with the heart posture of being a servant for his dad. I mean he wronged his father and sinned living a wild life, so he expected to have to earn living with his dad again. He expected to pay his father back but instead was embraced with loving arms. That is exactly how I imagine God embraces us when we run back to him. 

    Junior year of college, I would say I was still striving to earn God's love. In fact, it has been very recently that I have started to grasp his love (and I think that is something that is lifelong). I would listen to the Father's song by Upperroom. "I'm so proud of you, you didn't run away when it got hard" would be the line that would just make me cry. How could God really be proud of me? A couple weeks ago I drew exactly how I felt God saw me in that moment. He knew I was hurting with grief and he was right there. I struggled to understand that line though when I failed to meet my own standards of myself.

    Here's the deal. There is no __ amount of Bible Study + __  amount of quiet time + __ amount of prayer time + __ amount of corporate worship, etc. formula to being the best Christian ever. There is only a child of God saved by grace through faith. We all needed the grace of God because we could not have done this on our own. I like to say to myself in a time of worship "Worship like nobody's watching... except the Lord" because I realized when looking at the verse of "Worship God in Spirit and in Truth" I realized the context being of the Samaritan woman at the well. I realize she came with her heart set on the relationships she had with guys (5 husbands, and one other guy). In her context, she was trying to find fulfillment both physically and mentally and she longed for the living water that would completely satisfy that desire. To worship God in Spirit and in Truth, she was right before the Messiah. She was right in front of the Messiah who knew the brokenness of her situation. He realized where she was at, and she realized by the end of their interaction who he was. Are we allowing for the Holy Spirit to move in worship? Are we worshipping God with the truth of who he is and the truth of where we are? There was a time when I was going through grief, and my worship was hope-filled and grateful that the Lord was walking me through that journey wrapping the community I had then around me. There are worship times when I am in pain, and the most I can do is sit and sing. There are worship times when I just see the beauty of the Lord and I just want to jump around. The woman came to the well for water, and she came with a believing heart that the Lord could truly give her water that would satisfy her. Her heart was willing to listen and willing to receive.

    There is so much outside appearance to outwardly following rules. Jesus wants your heart. He wants your tender, teachable, willing, and repentant heart. No sin cycle will stop by our own human strength because it is the grace of God that sets us free from it. It is in his strength that when we fix our eyes on him, we become free from sin patterns. We experience that grace too through the people we spend our time with. When we are around strong people of the faith, we can grow as they point us to the Lord. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus rather than our sins, we become more like Jesus. When we focus more on our relationship with Jesus rather than following strict rules, we enter into his love, his grace, and his kindness, and we can grow in his love and grace with others.