Many years ago, when the earth was cooling, I was sucked
in to the black hole of legalism. I was in love with Jesus Christ as a teen at
age 19. A friend's mom invited me to attend a seminar with her that she just
thought was great. What should have been a question for me to consider was the
fact that she seemed always to be depressed. But, with no one to mentor me, I
paid my fee and went to this large arena for an entire week.
Day after day, I heard that God has hundreds of
principles in the Bible that He expects us to live by. If we are having
struggles in any area of our life, it is because we are not practicing God's
principles. It was very convincing as story after story seemed to validate
that we really are bound by God to live by principles. Little did I know that I
was being ambushed by legalism. I had a great zeal for Jesus but no
understanding of the gospel of grace. It reminds me of the scripture, "My people
perish from a lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)
If we fast forward, by the time I was 30 years old I was
a mess. For over 10 years I was so passionately focused on obeying God's
principles, that I lost sight of my first love, Jesus Himself. The results for
me were large doses of depression, discouragement and eventually
disillusionment. I finally burned out totally.
Our story with God is supposed to be written with the
ink of love. When it is not, we can drift into living by Biblical principles
and completely miss the relationship God has always intended for us to
have.
The good news for me is that God's love for me was and
is much greater than the deception I had embraced. When I could no longer do the
principles, our awesome loving God met me, bringing me back into a deeper way to
the love relationship I experienced when I was 19. This time, I knew enough
about the gospel of grace to leave legalism forever.
I am not saying there are not principles in God's Word.
He has the best way to live in our marriages, to manage our finances, etc. But
those are only doable when we are living from the relationship with the one who
loves us and lives in us, the person of Jesus Christ who is our life!
How about you? Are you drawn more towards principles or
the Person who lives in you?
Until next time, remember, He loves
us!
Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President and Founder
GraceLifeInternational.com
All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding
