Breaking free from legalism
Our relationship with God comes first before our obedience to do his will. We need to satisfy ourselves in Christ first before we can successfully obey him. Yet if you were confused by the spirit of legalism, like I was as a child, you may have only heard that you have to obey God’s commands to please him. Often legalism does not even consider our relationship with God, only the rules. Please join me as we explore how we must first relate to Jesus as our friend and Savior before we try to obey his commands.
Having a relationship with God was foreign to me in my childhood. Even today, I still get excited to hear others speak about their relationship with the Lord. One of the women in my women’s Bible study said, “My relationship with God comes first before my obedience to do his will. I must satisfy myself in Christ first.” I loved listening to this, because I still don’t hear it enough, having grown up starved of ever hearing about God wanting a relationship with me. I grew up in a denomination where we were not taught about God wanting a relationship with us (and in an especially legalistic home.) We learned that following the rules of God was most important. In my home I had never even heard of anyone having a relationship with God, even though numerous Old and New Testament verses attest to that wonderful relationship (Isaiah 41:8, “Abraham my friend,” John 15:15 “Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.”)
Despite not knowing the phrase “relationship with God,” I did intuitively desire and pursue one. Because I had been love-motivated since my childhood, I wanted to know God’s love. But my parents never spoke of God loving us lavishly with grace the way the Bible describes the Father’s love. They always reminded us of how much we failed and disappointed God and only spoke of obeying God, which I clumsily tried to do so. Strangely enough, my parents never urged me to read my Bible daily. So God helped me to read my Bible because of a mistake I made at a Billy Graham Crusade. I did not fill out their paperwork correctly and only listed a church I had attended when I lived in another state. The crusade staff assumed I had not attended church for years, so they sent me many “new believer” materials including a book about growing closer to the Lord. They urged me to read my Bible daily (telling me to begin with seven minutes daily.) I eagerly did so, albeit without an organized plan and with limited understanding, since my Bible was King James, and it did not speak well to my heart.
Then as a twenty-year old, I applied to a mission, but they told me I did not know the Old Testament well enough and urged me to enroll in an Old Testament Bible survey. With fear, I did so but soon discovered I loved the class and loved finally coming to understand the Old Testament better (and God’s love as found in that testament.) All along the way, the Lord was wooing me to know his love far better.
Without proper teaching, I still struggled with legalism for many years as a young adult while attending my childhood denomination. But when I left that denomination and attended Mariner’s Church in Orange County, I heard Pastor Kenton Beshore speak of God’s love in ways I could comprehend. The Lord broke through my fears and enabled me to cry and ask for prayer. I am still amazed by God’s grace, because I still did many things to please God out of a sense of obligation, even though I did want God to love me. At least I now had a strong sense there was more to knowing God than I had been taught. Because the sense of duty had been drilled into my mind, I still could not fully grasp God’s love. I always had a nagging doubt about how well God could love me, because I felt like such an unlovable person.
God continued crashing through my walls by bringing me to women who deeply loved God and who shared their deepest hurts with him. They prayed with such vulnerability, telling God everything that hurt them. What a contrast to me. I was raised in a home where we were taught that such honesty is just complaining to God, and we should not bother him with all of our sorrows. But that had not worked for me, because I did not deeply feel God’s love by not telling God everything that bothered me. I had not told him about how very much the cruelty of others had hurt me. I had nothing to lose, so I began to tell God a few things that hurt.
I had no idea that by telling God about every hurt and betrayal, I could feel so much of his love. I also did not realize how much better I could love others (forgive them, forebear with their weaknesses and rough sides) after I told God every single thing that hurt me. I did not equate releasing pain to God with receiving more of his love and the ability to love others better. Yet when I continued to do this, I felt such joy (Psalm 99:6b, “They cried to the Lord for help and he answered them.”) Obeying and serving God was so much easier as I began to grieve before the Lord, because he heard my cry and gave me comfort, so I felt his love for me fully. Through my vulnerability with God, I could find more love, and I could do as my friend had said, “Satisfy myself in God.”
Serving God through duty and also trying to act unharmed by other people’s cruelty had only pushed me away from God. My rote rituals and denial of my broken heart had not allowed God to fully heal it. I still had to set aside all the rituals and legalistic demands and just be honest with God. I could not feel fully satisfied in the Lord until I admitted to how much pain I suffered in the past, and then told God how much it hurt in the present. I actually took a season off from significantly serving God and just pursued him to feel his love.
God was so kind and gentle with me. He never told me that I was lazy as I worked on letting him heal my wounds. Telling God gave me such a sense of his love and concern for my pain. Of course God could later point out anything I had done wrong. But at first, God just let me cry to him and sense him wiping away my tears (Psalm 56:8, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”)
This healing was so different from how I was raised in a legalistic home where we denied we felt any pain, and we tried to keep serving God, too much like wounded soldiers who bleed to death on the battle field. God does not want us to bleed to death on the battle field by serving him without addressing our spiritual and emotional wounds. He does not want us to burn out for him by constantly serving him out of rote legalism. First and foremost, God wants us to know how much he loves us. When we know his love, then we can serve him with so much joy. As my friend said, once we satisfy ourselves in Jesus, then we can go out and obey him. What a kind God we have.
I pray I have blessed you with this week’s post. If you have suffered from legalism and would like to share your story, please tell me. And if you do not know how to satisfy yourself in the Lord, please contact me so I can share this wonderful news with you personally. May the Lord bless you this week.