Legalism Creates Additions to God's Rules (TMF:458)

Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Peace to Live By: Legalism Creates Additions to God's Rules (TMF:458) - Daniel Litton
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       Fifth, legalism creates additions to God’s rules for us. The Pharisees created many rules and regulations that they had added to God’s Law outlined in the Old Testament. This caused a blur in the line between God’s righteous decrees and the laws of men. We shouldn’t be lawmakers in our lives, creating rules we must follow in order to be seemingly pleasing to God, or to make ourselves feel good. It’s not that having discipline in our lives isn’t important, but there is a difference between good discipline and legalistic, empty rules that must be followed. You don’t have to follow ‘your’ rule everyday in order to be correct in your behavior. A person might create a rule that he or she needs to read three chapters of the Bible each day. That’s a good goal, but we shouldn’t rigorously follow it without regard to reason. If the person feels like he or she can’t miss keeping this rule, then legalism has set in. It was a good practice, but don’t let the practice rule over you. Don’t become a slave to a rule you have created so that you end up doing the action just for the sake of keeping true to the rule. That’s legalism.