Legalism and Grace

Have you ever had someone call you a legalist? It is not a compliment the way it is usually used! It’s definition? Legalism: A strict literal or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code. And once you put that conformity on other people they really want to be close to God. Not!!

How does one get wrapped up in religious legalism? It is an important question. So many churches today preach a wonderful message of grace and forgiveness from the pulpit but yet they live so ungraciously toward one another during the week. So harshly. So legalistically. We are supposed to live out the message and truth of grace, not just preach grace, not just have grace on the name of our church. We are to live it out in the every day of our lives . We don't want to place massive gorillas onto peoples' backs and add to their burdens by requiring religious adherence to our rules.

Religious legalism usually starts off with good intentions. It begins with peoples’ heartfelt desire to find acceptance from God. That is a good thing. Many strike out on their own to order their lives to what they believe defines holiness. The problem is, they tend to look only at the things that can be measured. And that would be outward conformity only. They go on this journey because they believe it is the right thing to do and to find His acceptance.

They start with themselves – what would God like? Well He would probably like me to go to church. He would probably like me to read the Bible. He would probably like me to pray a certain number of hours during the week. He would probably like me to go to Bible school. He would probably, He would probably, He would probably. Then we say “I'm not sure I can do all this but I really want God to like me so I will try as hard as I can!” The approach starts with 'me'. Not with God. And it is an easy place to find oneself. If you are in a relationship with God you are half of that relationship! And God says clearly “Be holy as I am holy.” It’s not as if the desire to be holy came from nowhere.

My experience watching Christians is they are at a crossroads once they decide to follow God into the deep waters of holiness. We either realize it is a day by day walk with God that requires humility and wisdom and many bumps along the road or we invent rules that will allow us to “know” when we have met the “holiness standard.” Set by us of course!

Let’s step into Joe or Jill Christian’s life. Let’s say Joe has had a problem with Internet pornography before he came to Christ. He is aware that the Internet, for him, is a dangerous place. And for him initially he might choose to set up some serious parameters around his usage of even his home computer. He might have passwords that his wife knows. A history he is willing to show her (or his Bible study) at any time.

But what if Joe decided his problem required him to set up those same parameters on everyone? What if his own set of rules that he believed needed to be deeply personal convictions for himself he decided needed to be personal convictions for everyone. Joe might become a deeply religious person as he sought to deal with his own weaknesses and aspects of his specific sin nature. But the problem is Joe could easily end up entering the condemnation zone (which is a much worse place than the twilight zone).

The condemnation zone is where you start taking your personal convictions and looking at other people through them and making a judgment on how they are doing with God. How is that other person doing with God? How are they lining up with God? Are they working hard to gain His acceptance? And usually they are not (in your opinion). And you begin making assumptions about their motivations and the condition of their heart.

It’s not like women aren’t prone to these same issues. A woman might come to a conviction about the wearing of certain neck lines, skirt lengths, swimsuit wearing, you name it. And for her it might be a desire to honor what she sees in the Bible as it pertains to holiness and modesty in dress. The challenge for one woman is she may decide that all women everywhere, no matter what age, what culture and what state of relationship to God still have to follow her rules for holiness. She might start on a crusade she thinks is going to honor God but ends up decimating the women and girls around her.

So then how do you see other people? If you have set up stringent standards for yourself you might just decide other people who don’t have your standards just don't care! They're just not dedicated to God like I am! Something is wrong! No longer can you love people but they have to perform up to a certain level before you will allow your love to go out. And you are giving the impression that this is how God feels toward us. And that is not what the Bible says at all! Grace is defined as God’s wonderful goodness and unmerited favor toward people. He gives away his favor just because he wants to! So why are people then trying to earn his favor you ask? Because they believe that's what religion tells them. Religious tradition is filled with this.

The church my father started is an example of religious tradition on steroids. If everything is not done exactly how their rules say things are to be done the response is immediate harshness and condemnation. They monitor and police every member to enforce their religious rules. And if you are not a member of their church or leave their church you are condemned to hell, end of discussion. All the while they tell you their behavior is motivated by their love for you. They have a vague intellectual understanding of grace but they desperately cling to their rules and traditions; their legalism! The Pharisees in the Bible got so lost in their religious rules, traditions and power structures that when the Lord appeared and disrupted their religious system their response was deadly anger.

You completely miss what God has revealed about Himself in the scriptures when you live a life like I just described. The only way a person can find acceptance before this Holy God is to believe in the holy substitute God sent to this earth to essentially go to the gallows for us. For our sin. And that holy substitute is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ alone is holy enough to gain the acceptance of God. Jesus Christ alone is perfect enough to gain the acceptance of God. You and I will never be perfect enough to gain God's acceptance no matter how hard we try. Not by a million miles! But the Good News is that God has a way around this problem. One he designed with Jesus before time began.

The way to gain God’s acceptance is to have someone deal with our sin problem which has put us massively at odds with God. You can’t have sinners hanging out with a holy God who hates sin. At least not very well! The way God the Father provided for us to come to Him and be accepted was Christ. Because He completely accepts Christ and Christ is willing to stand in and take our punishment for us. So the first step in a relationship with the Father is to believe the Son did what He said He could do. Pay for our sin and set us free. To be fully and completely accepted by the Father. You see there is no other way other than faith in the solution, the one He provided, the person of Jesus Christ.

In a sense I need to hide myself behind Jesus Christ who is my stand in. The one who is going to my gallows. I need to be attached to him as a branch to the vine. Then you and I can have that acceptance with God before we try to do anything to please God. The acceptance God has provided is by my faith in Jesus Christ alone, and all of a sudden I find the complete acceptance of God. My sins are forgiven. I am washed clean by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God. And I can experience in my soul the presence of God. And I can experience His love. His love begins to fill my heart and it becomes my motivation! The more I understand His love the more I respond to His love!

Jesus wants individual hearts to be open to Him as Messiah and King. It's why He came. He's not looking for crowds. He is looking for individuals. He wants each of us as individuals to open the gates of our city; open our own individual hearts; and let Him in to be King of our life, each of us. He wants us to let Him set up His throne in our heart, each of us. That's what He wants. And when He does that our whole life changes. And God is saying I will accept you in the exact same way I accept my beloved Son if only you will hide yourself in Him.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:16-17

Hide yourself in the Son of God. That is where you will find the acceptance of God and you will experience it in your soul. God has promised us that He will put His Holy Spirit within us, just as He put His Holy Spirit upon His only beloved begotten Son. And then we will have God's power to live our lives like Jesus lived and not depend on legalism for God's acceptance. This is a life-long process motivated by the love of God, powered by the strength of God, as we are kept safe within the care of God.

“Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen;
My Beloved in whom My soul is well-pleased;
I will put My Spirit upon Him,
And He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
“He will not quarrel, nor cry out;
Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.
“A battered reed He will not break off,
And a smoldering wick He will not put out,
Until He leads justice to victory.
“And in His name the Gentiles will hope.”
Matthew 12: 18-21

A bruised and battered reed blown over by the wind, knocked over by the forces around it. When someone comes to such a bruised and broken reed the person says: “can I use this?” and someone answers: “No, throw it away. It's worthless!” But Jesus says He will not break it and destroy it. Instead He will take it and heal it. Some of us are like bruised reeds today. We're barely making it, we've been beaten up by the world and we are kind of messed up. We've been knocked down, drug along behind a truck, and we are just shredded wheat on the inside. Just completely mauled and demoralized. And we think what can God do with me? What can God do for me?

God is not interested in you meeting a certain standard before He will accept you. He knows better! God accepts you in Christ. And God wants to come and heal your brokenness. But if you approach God on the basis of works you will never experience that healing because you will always be blocking His moves. You say to God: 'No no, you don't understand, I'm just not good enough!' And God says: “I'm good enough!” I was good for you. Now let me heal your life.” You say to God: “No, you don't understand! I haven't got that act together yet! I'm still working on it.” And we keep blocking His moves.

All the Lord wants you to do is put your hands down. Stop fighting with God. Let Him reach down into your heart and touch your life, in the deep deep areas of your life, and bring freshness and healing. That's vulnerable. Don't be afraid of the Lord. Put the hands down. Sure you are a broken reed, a bruised reed. But see the Lord wants to come in and heal you and set you back up right and wrap that binding string around you to strengthen you and touch your heart and restore your life.

The Lord is well pleased with us when we hide ourselves in Jesus. Let Him cover you with His love. Cease from striving and take Him at His word. He loves you. He is not going to hurt you.

Mark Phelps

Motivation: Fear or Love?

The concept of how to motivate people in business and in life is something Americans care a lot about. What I’m writing about today is the way my father, Fred W. Phelps Sr. chose to motivate his children. And later how he tried to motivate his church and ultimately his community.

I think when my father started out as a pastor he was honestly telling people what he believed to be true. And initially I think he thought what he was saying was for the benefit of his listeners. But what my father did that hurt him and a whole lot of other people in the process was he started to isolate himself and would not allow anyone to give him feedback. About his thinking. About his preaching. And ultimately about the way he lived his life. And a man out of the loop of feedback from his peers is a man who can go astray. And to say my father went astray is truly an understatement.

What my father did was find what he thought were the most important rules from the bible for how to live properly and then he pounded those into the minds of his listeners. Over and over and over again! Those of us who later got out of my father’s cult found out that my father cherry picked things from the Bible that mirrored his growing hatred of himself and other people. So he truly chose over time to preach hate. The hate was actually in his own heart but he picked concepts out of the Bible that he thought might support his views and then ever so subtly he twisted them. And to do that he pretty much had to throw the true God and His Son out. My father especially disliked Jesus. Who he understood was loving and forgiving and because of that had to either ignore or malign.

When I first came to understand that Jesus had died for my sin and actually was a loving, caring Savior my life was at a very different place than it is today. I had no concept of the fact that the Father and the Son meant for me to live in relationship with them first and foremost. And ONLY after that they would empower me to live my life out in a loving way, with their love actually flowing through me. I had no idea about this kind of relationship when I was a young man in my father’s church. My father never explained how a person was to live up to his rigid rules. He just beat the rules into us. There was so much information spewed forth at us with rigid harsh expectations for how we were to live our lives but there was no instruction given on how that was to be accomplished. Truly your nightmare leadership style to be sure!

We did not understand anything about the power and the hope that was available to us for living the new life Christ wanted for us. Well for that matter most of us didn’t even understand that Christ had a new life he wanted for us! At least this understanding wasn’t coming from my father’s preaching. What we did understand was fear! What we got was my father’s endless teaching, mostly of his own making with little connection to the heart of God and the Bible’s plain meaning and packed with plenty of don’ts, with boat loads of fear mongering and deception, but honestly very few dos, certainly no instruction on how, and no hint of love!

What I have learned over the years is that people who are in a life giving relationship with the Father and the Son rarely have time to do anything negative or judgmental because they are so filled up with the love of God. The people who tend to bash, in my experience, are the ones far, far from God. And because they have no relationship with God they resort to rules.

I struggled to live up to the standards apparently required by God (remember, this was according to my father) and the meeting of this standard was imposed with brutality by my father, the preacher. I know now that it is possible to be aware of the facts of Jesus and his death for your sake without knowing what his death and resurrection truly means. I actually think this happens to a lot more of us than we realize if we aren’t truly given the teaching we need to understand this amazing life Christ wants to give us. That was my experience.

I had a fair amount of the “head knowledge” of the Bible and the facts of Jesus’ amazing death and resurrection from the dead. What I didn’t have was an understanding that that historic event had real power connected with it to allow a young man in Topeka, Kansas to be able to live a very different kind of life. Eventually when the head knowledge became heart knowledge, and of a practical sort, my life changed. So I can honestly say to you that I am no longer living the life I used to live.

Here’s why. The Bible says some things happened when I became a follower of Christ . . . a change occurred that was as simple as the flipping of a light switch and as life altering as a baby getting born.

One part of the flipping of the switch was me having, for the first time in my life, help and power from God to live the life He wanted me to live. And the help would come from Him! In the Bible it says “It was through reading the Scripture that I came to realize that I could never find God’s favor by trying—and failing—to obey the laws. I came to realize that acceptance with God comes by believing in Christ. ‘I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Wrapped up in the gift of responding to God’s love and becoming a child of His was this amazing truth that God would live in me and with me and that because of that amazing fact, my life would never be the same. Because of God’s love for me and the fact He was now actually living His life in and through mine I could live my life in a completely different manner.

Okay, so what was the point about all of us trying to obey God’s law on our own? Do we motivate ourselves by our fear of God so we won’t misbehave? Do we honestly think it is because God’s desire is to keep us in constant fear and that He is going to crush us like bugs if we don’t toe the line? No! Then what is the point of us using fear, on our self and others, as a motivator for good behavior?

Remember the definition of “the law” in the Old Testament was simple and written requirements God set out for the Jewish people that would allow them to stay in the right relationship with Him. God created the Ten Commandments FOR His people. They were there for people’s protection just like guard rails on a curvy mountainous highway. But a cursory reading of the Ten Commandments brings us to the conclusion that no one has ever kept the law. All of us in the human race have broken those commandments. We have lied and coveted and not honored our parents and a whole lot more. The New Testament says something huge. It says “If someone obeys all of God’s laws except one, that person is guilty of breaking all of them.”

Wow. That’s a high standard. What’s that about? Who could even think about obeying all the laws of God all the time? When God made the universe He set it up as a moral universe. What that really means is it’s the kind of universe where the things you do matter. Your deeds have consequences. If you hit somebody you break their nose. And you actually break more than bones. You end up doing harm to the relationship you have with that person. God understands this cause and effect relationship. He set it up that way. What we reap we sow. Our actions matter. God expected people to live good, moral lives where they would show compassion and kindness and fight injustice. He would call the people He made to be of the highest moral fiber. But any thinking person realizes that God also gave people the ability to break His laws when He gave them free will. And people do break His laws with great regularity as we see each night on the news and as we walk down the streets of our villages, towns and cities.

Well that’s fine, but what was God really up to when He told us if we couldn’t obey all His laws it’s like we are guilty of breaking them all? When you read the Bible from cover to cover you see that God never lets up on the high standard He sets. In fact, He says things so beyond our comprehension they almost make us laugh. Like when He says “Be holy as I am holy.” Seriously?!

Well actually, yes. He was serious. This whole issue of God’s law itself and whether anyone had a prayer of keeping it completely was worked out by Jesus as He preached the Sermon on the Mount. On that mountain Jesus explained that the standard God set for Old Testament Jews He still wanted us to uphold but that Jesus was refining it to help us realize the standard was to be made even higher. But Jesus also explains in the Sermon on the Mount that this high standard has great and wonderful rewards. Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God.” So His high standard, while high indeed, has a wonderful outcome. Jesus shows these high standards partly to encourage people how they could live happy, holy, and productive and caring lives. But he had another purpose.

Wait till you read the Sermon on the Mount again. You will see that the standard is truly Godlike. A standard so high it can’t be lived up to by we who are mortal! And you find out, as you wrestle with this thought, there was a reason why God did this. And that by showing the standard as insurmountably high must have been God’s point! Why else would you raise a bar even higher for a people who had never lived up to it in the first place! He wanted to make it really clear we couldn’t do it on our own and that without His Spirit living in us it was NEVER going to happen!

Um . . . does it have this odd feeling like we are being set up for failure? By God?

No, actually. It’s more like a master builder, who after asking his students to build a building as high as the heavens, tells them that not for one minute are they going to have to build this building alone. And that He will be with them each step of the way. When Jesus preached the truths of the Sermon on the Mount He built in the promises or the gifts we’d receive in each high standard he set out. When He says blessed are the merciful, He follows immediately with “they shall receive mercy.” So, yes, He is asking us to show mercy on people that it is sometimes hard to show mercy, too, but He reminds us those people will be shown mercy in unique ways. He is such an encouraging God! When He gets to the part where He says those who are persecuted for His sake are blessed He says “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in Heaven is great.” So when Jesus was setting this high standard He was promising us those actions would bring blessing to us, even if it would be in ways we couldn’t imagine. So these high, really impossible standards had promises built right in to them. And the reality is we are hard-wired by God for a desire to live these moral, honorable lives.

In most every place on the planet people want to live this exact kind of life with high moral standards. A truly well lived life! We can see this by the constitutions and legal systems of countries and municipalities but also in the rules we make for our own families. We really do care. And we want to live up to the standards of our own countries’ laws but also to a higher law. We are drawn to God’s law whether we understand it’s His or not. We want to be people of honesty and integrity who are able to show compassion and love towards other people. We really do! We see evidence of this desire in our response to what we read in the newspapers because we are embarrassed and saddened when we ourselves or others are not living up to high standards, ours or someone else’s. We are created in God’s image and there is a real desire in each of us to do what we understand to be right.

Can our desire for goodness and honesty and kindness ever be perverted? Actually made into the exact opposite? Well, yes. Little children in any culture have strong needs for belonging and acceptance and we see children following the adults around them, the good ones and the evil ones. Children and even adults can be taught to do wrong and essentially change their bent if there is enough incentive, coercion or fear involved.

If you look at the news today you see individuals being drawn into and indoctrinated in the evils of terrorism who as young children would never have dreamed of doing these things. And when I look at my family I see my nephews and nieces behaving the same way my brothers and sisters were trained to behave by my father. And what the masters of evil in any culture count on initially in their recruitment tactics is the human need to belong. If that doesn’t work, the teachers of evil move on to scare tactics and violence. But if we look at each person’s past, no matter how far back we have to look I believe we can see evidence of a desire to do what’s right and good and life giving in each of us, because each of us is made in the image of God. What I also see is with the folks in my family who have been able to leave the fold sometimes it’s the simplest things that let them know they must go. For some of them it is finding out that there truly are good and compassionate people on the “outside” even though they had always been told the opposite. Isn’t it interesting that love truly can ultimately prevail over fear?

I was many years into my life before Jesus’ love for me became the motivation for my actions instead of fear. I was taught to fear by my father. And my father did not just see to it that I was terrified of him, but that I was terrified of God. Somehow my father believed the only way to get “good behavior” out of us children was to terrify us. He must not have believed how much children are wired to want to please their parents. If my father had given me the slightest encouragement to be a good son and had understood my desire to please him and see a smile on his face or a “well done, son” that would have been so motivating. I had no idea that goodness or honesty or kindness or love could be the motivation for anything! I only knew fear as a motivator. And sadly for a while I motivated myself and even others by fear. It was what I had been taught and it was really my mother tongue. God rescued me from my family but I had a whole lot of unlearning of fear to do to get where I am today.

But now goodness and honesty and kindness and love all are motivations in my relationship with God. Now I know my God. I mean I know Him at a personal level. Or I am getting to know Him. If you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, goes beyond the intellectual knowledge you have about that person, but it is rooted in the facts about that person. For example, I love my wife because she is attractive to me, she is kind, she is sweet and she is nice and she is a great friend. All these things are facts about my wife, and therefore I love her. But my love goes beyond these facts. I could know all of these facts about my wife and not be in love with her and put my trust in her, but I do. My decision to love my wife goes beyond the evidence and facts of who she is, to the point of connecting with her essence, her soul and heart. We have shared thousands of special personal experiences that have deepened our mutual love, respect and submission. My wife and I are two souls who know one another intimately and deeply and will love one another forever.

It is the same with my love of God! My relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it is rooted in those exact historical facts. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, but my relationship with Jesus goes way beyond the evidence. I put my trust in Him and walk with Him on a daily basis. So my relationship with Jesus is no longer based just on my head knowledge and the information I have about Him. And it is not based any longer on fear. It is based on a daily, vital living loving relationship with Him. Very much like my relationship with my wife. He is living and real and a part of my minute by minute living! And he can be that for you if you want this!

Even with all of this, fear still creeps into my motivations for things at times, when stress is high or when I have failed. But I have had enough years now of knowing God’s love and goodness that the fear evaporates within seconds or within minutes now and I remember that God is my friend and a present help in trouble, not my adversary.

If you have been motivated by fear instead of love because of past abuse or mistreatment, know this is a process to being set free from it. But, oh, is it worth it! Love is such a beautiful basis for a relationship. And it will allow you to finally “be” you. With God and with others!

Mark Phelps