God's Grace Sets You Free To Be Yourself And Not ...

God’s grace sets you free to be yourself and not compromise to please people. God’s grace also sets you free from legalism. One of the black marks on so called Christians is legalism. Legalism is having a critical and judgmental attitude toward others. It is having spiritual pride and a superior attitude. Legalism is opposite true holiness and the Spirit of Christ.

Charles Swindoll in his book, Grace Awakening, tells the story of a couple who were friends of the family. He and his wife became youth workers in a church with Scandinavian roots. He decided to show a missionary film. He showed the missionary movie and after the meeting he heard from the leaders of the church. They asked him: “did you show the young people a film?” He told them that he had. “We don’t like that,” they replied. The youth worker commented that at the last Missionary Conference the missionary had showed slides. Then on of the leaders stated emphatically, “If it’s still, fine. If it moves: sin” In other words you can show slides, but when they start moving, you’re getting into sin. Legalism only makes sense to people who have their mind set and closed to thinking logically.

I read about a missionary family serving in a foreign country. It was a place where they could not purchase peanut butter and this entire family enjoyed peanut butter. So they made arrangements with friends in the States to send them peanut butter from time to time. The problem was that they didn’t know that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spiritually to not have peanut butter with your meals. They might have reasoned: “We believe we can’t get peanut butter here, so we should give it up for the cause of Christ.” Maybe they thought that a basis for spiritually was “bearing the cross” of living without peanut butter.