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From Legalism to Grace
By Boudicca | April 24, 2007
My Journey Away From Organized Religion and Into the Arms of Christ, Part the Second
Despite my legalistic tendencies, God had begun to come for me in ways that I didn’t recognize until later. My pastor from the time I was 10 until I was 18 was a truly loving, God-centered man, and had an incredible impact on my spiritual development….and is probably single-handedly responsible for me not turning away from God in frustration and emptiness. I saw the life of Christ in him, in a way that was completely authentic, and more than once it kept me from giving up on God. His raw passion for the Word of God sent me home with an insatiable curiosity about these words he loved so much. When I was about twelve I devoured the entire New Testament, sneaking away from my school and violin practicing to read more and more of it. It was true love…
…that slowly became one more thing that I added to my daily list of disciplines that were supposed to bring me closer to God. I did my daily quiet time, but other than the brief honeymoon period I described in the previous paragraph, it was from duty and fear rather than love. Despite God wooing my heart I continued to relate to him in the only way that was familiar to me: duty, obligation, shame.
In high school I began participating in a youth group at a different church than my own, and again God came for me. I developed friendships with two girls who were both in a place where God was wooing them to himself and they were falling in love with him. Their passion was contagious and I remember fondly many walks in the woods talking about our love for Christ, many times standing there in the beauty of nature praying together, many times sitting and singing our hearts out in love songs to our Savior.
Yet despite these experiences I inevitably settled into a routine of performing for God. My desire to love him and be close to him was insatiable…
…but the only way I knew how to relate to him was on the basis of my performance.
I led Bible studies and discipleship groups for younger girls. I was one of the few who would show up for prayer meetings. I evangelized on the streets (and organized outings if no one else did.) I read about the spiritual disciplines and made lists for myself so I would remember to practice many of them daily (all except fasting and solitude, which obviously were not meant to be daily disciplines!) I studied theology and philosophy. I tried, and if it didn’t seem to be working, I tried harder.
All I ever wanted was God.
But the more I tried to draw close to God, the less it worked. The more I “did”, the farther I felt from Christ. The more I sought to offload my shame and guilt, the more my own wickedness came crashing in on me.
When I was seventeen I attended a conference hosted by Josh Harris and Sovereign Grace Ministries (then known as PDI.) C.J. Mahaney taught about legalism, and it was the first time I saw clearly that I was turning what was essentially meant to be a relationship into a performance.
C.J. cited seven evidences of legalism. With each one more tears flowed as I found myself in his descriptions:
1. You are more aware of and affected by your past sin than you are the finished work of Jesus Christ. You are paralyzed by condemnation.
2. You are more aware of areas in which you need to grow than of the cross – you are more aware of what you are presently doing than of what Christ has done for you, and whatever you are doing, you feel that it is not enough.
3. You live thinking, feeling, and believing that God is disappointed in you and not delighting you.
4. You assume God’s acceptance is dependent on your obedience, so you make a list of things to do, often Biblical directives. But beware – the study of the Bible is never a basis for God’s acceptance of you, nor are any other spiritual disciplines.
5. You consistently experience condemnation. The way out of condemnation is actually to be unaware of our sin and to be totally aware of what Christ has done for us.
6. You have an undue concern for what people think, motivated by pride.
7. You lack joy.
It was truly a life-changing moment for me. Lightbulbs began to go off left and right. I had all these expectations of myself (that I never lived up to), I hated myself and assumed that if I didn’t even like myself, God never could, though he might begrudgingly forgive me, I was basically “on probation.” Every time I failed to live up to my own unrealistic expectations, I experienced despair, assuming that God was disappointed in me. C.J.’s words helped me to realize that we cannot say “I can’t save myself” and then spend the rest of our lives trying to do so….and that many times we Christians try to “smuggle character” into God’s work of grace.
For the first time I felt overwhelmed not merely by my love for God….but by his love for me. For the first time I realized my life didn’t have to center on my works and my performance and my ability to “live with character”….instead I could base my worth and security in HIS work and HIS resurrection. I could live a life of freedom and love, rather than shame and duty.
My world was about to get overturned again.
To be continued….