Read My Mail: Clues to Getting Free of Legalistic Living

For the last six months or so, I have been leading a small group of maturing sisters in the Lord. We call ourselves “Branches,” from the metaphor Jesus uses of Himself and His people in the gospel of John, chapter 15 — “I am the Vine; you are the branches.”

Our unifying theme is “living from our union with Christ.” We all long to understand and experience the freedom and fullness of our indwelling Lord Jesus through His Holy Spirit living in us and through us as us. And so we study and share and pray with and for each other.

In the course of our meetings and discussions, I was moved to write the following email. Maybe you would like to “eavesdrop” and read our mail. Feel free to jump in and respond. We can learn from each other.

Also be sure to check out our reading list and related blogs.

Hi gals,

Last time in our discussion I shared how in order to get free of some of my self-imposed legalisms,* I just quit until I knew that Christ in me was motivating and empowering me to go in certain directions…not my self effort and “should's and ought to’s.” I gave the illustration of “going to ladies meetings at church, “ but it started with throwing out my list of "self- and other- imposed disciplines.” For instance, I threw out my extensive, highly organized and dreaded “Prayer list.” I told the Lord that I wasn’t going to pray until HE showed me what true prayer was, because I knew what I was doing couldn’t be true prayer. It was hard at first because I had to let myself feel guilty and shamed, but eventually I got free and true prayer started welling up inside from the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

I had never seen this in print or heard this kind of thing from anyone, so I was hesitant to share it…just in case it was just God’s way with me personally (which of course it was!). But then I saw it in print in Mark Maulding's book: Gods’ Best Kept Secret (which I highly recommend).

So I’m sharing an excerpt from his book that speaks to this issue. I hope it’s helpful and would love to hear from you about what the Lord might be doing with it in your life.

“Here’s an exercise to help identify when you might be living by religious rules…
1. You feel afraid of God’s punishment.
2. You feel condemned.
3. You find yourself thinking, ‘I should be doing ___________ (fill in the blank).
4. You believe perfection must be the goal and any mistake is a failure.

“How do you break the pattern of living under self-imposed religious rules? The answer may feel wrong at first, but here’s the best course of action to break the stranglehold on you life. When you identify a a rule you put on yourself, make a conscious effort to ‘skip it.’ For example …

— Skip reading your Bible for a week and instead do an activity you really enjoy.
— Skip church attendance one week to spend genuine quality time with your family.
— Skip giving money to your church one week and give it to someone else God shows you who is in need.
— Skip being nice to someone for the sake of trying to get good karma.
— Skip thinking that God will punish you for skipping the activities on this list!

“Skip following your religious rules and do something that makes you feel free … I must warn you, however, to be prepared for the false guilt Satan (and other people) will try to make you feel when you decide to skip a religious rule…”

Gods’ Best Kept Secret, Mark Maulding, pages 101-103.

Also, John and I were discussing how sometimes the more we know biblically and theologically can make us feel that we are the more mature “stronger” Christian when maybe we are the “weaker” one because we are tied to the should’s and ought to’s and other hyper-legalisms ( see Romans 14). It made me think of a phrase from our readings in HIMSELF (A.B. Simpson), “the funeral of my dogmatics.” Here is the line (p.5) — “My head was in my way, but at last when I was brought to attend ‘the funeral of my dogmatics’…the Lord whispered to me the little secret, ‘Christ in you.’” [see link below for HIMSELF]

I’m so thankful that the "funeral of my Catholic upbringing, convent training, evangelical Bible school theological training and other systems of how to live the Christian life” took place years ago. At that time, I told John and really meant it that I’m throwing out everything I ever learned. I’m trusting God to rebuild my theology HIS WAY with HIS TRUTH in the correct place and the right combination. And HE did and HE has and HE continues to do so. And I refuse to ever go back.  This is just too good! 

What about you, dear sisters? Have you attended the “funeral of your dogmatics” (no matter what that might look like)? Do you dare to do so? I’m praying if this is resonating with you because God has you at that point that you take the risk — "walk out onto the water with HIM firmly in view." You will never regret it!  I’d love to hear about it if you care to share.

All for now, I think…

Much love

Jan

Branches Reading List (so far):

The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

Christ, the Sum of All Spiritual Things by Watchman Nee

“Himself” by AB Simpson (printable article)

Lifetime Guarantee by Bill Gilliam (our next book to read and discuss)

*You might also like The Smile that Destroyed my Religion

*Also Stones of Remembrance

To study and reflect on our union with God, may I shamelessly plug my book: The With-ness of our God: Relationship in Every Dimension.

Take a look at this link to go to my book page for a video, book description and table of contents, endorsements, and study helps: The With-ness of our God.