confessions of a recovering legalist

le·gal·ism

 [lee-guh-liz-uhm] 

noun

1.

strict adherence, or the principle of strict adherence, to law orprescription, especially to the letter rather than the spirit.

2.

Theology .

a.

the doctrine that salvation is gained through good works.

b.

the judging of conduct in terms of adherence to preciselaws.

according to dictionary.com.

i, like so many christians before and after me, have grown up believing that what will one day get me into heaven and closer to God is following the rules of the Bible and the rules of christian institutions.

but it became pretty obvious to me a couple years ago that i'd never be able to follow rules. i can't even make my bed in the mornings.

it's been about 5 years since i discovered how i was bent towards following rules, and it's been five years (and will be the rest of my life!) of recovery.

the strange thing is that what God offers is so much better than following rules. i can't believe how often the church teaches legalism when God offers something so much more kind and beautiful.

what God says is that:

we are sinners (Romans 5:8)
but Jesus has saved us. He was sacrificed for our sins so that we wouldn't be separated from God anymore. He has made us holy, blameless, and innocent before God, and he has taken our sins on himself. (Hebrews 7)
and therefore, i can do absolutely nothing but accept this grace from Jesus and praise him for saving me.

the road to recovery is always long, and i still find myself responding to sin in my legalistic way. but God is greater than my legalism!