Monday, October 13, 2008

Thoughts on Legalism

What is the main focus in our lives? You probaly already know that our main focus should always be Christ. The first commandment says, "You shall have no other Gods before me." This means that the most precious thing in our lives should be God, nothing should be more valuble to us than him... but sometimes this is not the case.

Legalism is a sign that Christ is not our main focus. Legalism is when we add man made rules to God's law, and we get so caught up in pressing that rule on other Christians that we forget what really matters. When our focus is on our made up rules, it is not on Christ. We never want this to be the case, so in order to keep Christ our main focus we must always look to scripture for what God would have us do. Life has many distractions, we can easily get caught up in the things of this world. legalism is one of those things, and we should always strive not to become legalistic.

7 comments:

kalipay said...

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Penn Tomassetti said...

Thanks for writing on this important subject. You are right on about legalism. Legalism is not only adding man-made rules to the picture, but it can also interpret God's rules the wrong way. We need to be sure we interpret the commands of God the way He intends us to understand them. For example, the law was given to show us our need for Christ. "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:20). And see also 1 John 5:1-5.

Keep up the good thoughts. God bless.

Charlie said...

You must also point out that legalism can be believing that you must follow all of God's laws (which are good) to be saved. I think many people mistake this idea for one that is completely wholesome. That is, if you are growing toward God, you will begin to want to follow his laws--all of them.

P.S.--You beat me to the punch, Connor. I was going to post on this subject, too. (I probably still will).

Anonymous said...

That is so true! Legalism is something we want to stay away from. Thank, Connor!

Margaret Braun said...

Good reminder!

DTH Rocket said...

Speaking of legalism, you should have capitalized it in the last sentence!

Just in case you take it wrong, that was a JOKE!

Thanks for the post. When Christ is the main focus of our lives we shouldn't get caught up in all the nitty gritty rules, but if we truly love Christ we will try to become more like him anyway! Thank you for proclaiming this!

Sharon said...

That's right CJ, because being legalistic can hurt not only you, but the Lord and other people as well. It's horrible. There was a good book on the subject called "Breaking the Bonds of Legalism". Sorry, but I forgot who it's by (three men wrote it together though).