GDP
Site Admin
Joined: 19 Mar 2008
Posts: 300
Location: Everett, PA, USA |
 Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:10 pm |
  |
|
When we begin a discussion of legalism you may immediately have in mind some particular sect. Unfortunately, no denomination, no particular sect has a corner on the legalism market. Many, if not all churches are contaminated in some way.
The rules of "touch not, taste not, handle not" come to mind, but then there is the laws on what clothing is allowed or banned, how you must wear your hair, and how you must handle your money to be found acceptable by God for blessing. In the end, the rules of men always produce bondage and the rules of God always produce freedom. Limits stop you, boundaries protect you.
This actually dates back to the Garden of Eden. Think about it. God told Adam, "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." God told Adam, but it was Adam whose job it was to aprise Eve of the rules. Eve, quoting what she had learned said that God's standard was, "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil neither shall you touch it lest you die." God set boundaries, but Adam, with good intentions I'm sure, set a limit that God had not ordained.
| Quote: | "Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s Cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important."
- The Message : The Bible in contemporary language ( Col 2:11-23 ) |
You have been set free from the bondage of manmade religious limits, but you need to stay within the boundaries of righteousness (walking in agreement with God) and holiness (living a life that honors God.) Only then can you and I know real freedom.
| Quote: | "So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!"
- The Message : The Bible in contemporary language ( Rom. 6:15-18 ) |
Live free, not under the tyranny of some man's legalistic system. What are our boundaries? When the early Church faced this they had the following answer:
| Quote: | | 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." ( Acts 15:24-29 New International Version ) |
Simple, straight forward, and liberating.
_________________
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world" -C.S. Lewis |
|
