Showing posts with label legalists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legalists. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Find out if you are a legalist...

1. Have you ever felt pressured to hide your sin/s?

2. Do you act differently among believers and unbelievers?

3. Do you feel pressured to convert others into your beliefs?

4. Do you feel bad when you skip church on Sundays?

5. Do you have a perfectionist spirit?

6. Do you hate homosexuals?

7. Do you boast about your religion?

8. Do you feel guilty when you can't keep up your daily 'time with God'?

9. Have you ever got into a fight with your spouse/kids on Sunday morning for they being late for church?

10. Have you ever worried about the 'bad' things people may say during your funeral?

11. Do you think more about your church/ministry than God Himself?

12. Do you have a liking towards the preaching from the OT over the preaching from the NT?

13. Do you think that if you don't tithe, you may lose your favor with God?

14. Do you put pressure on your spouse/kids to keep/make things perfect all the time?

15. Do you feel pressured to convict others about why you believe what you believe?

16. Do you have a different face in church and home?

17. Have you ever felt guilty for not taking a particular ministry at church?

18. Do you have an accountability partner?

19. Have you ever thought that you can tame your fleshly desires and make God more happy?

20. Do you attend seminars like where they teach 'Christian principles'?

21. Have you ever felt pressured to save your pastor's face?

22. Though others think that you are very righteous and posses high moral values, have you ever wondered why you feel dirty inside?

23. Do you tell others that your religion is doing wonders in your life while in reality it's making you miserable?

24. Do you search Scriptures for do's and don'ts?

25. Are you easily angered when some one talk bad about your pastor/church/denomination/religion?

26. Do you teach your kids '10 commandments' and tell them that God get angry if they break one of them?

27. Do you feel any insecurity when you break one of your own do's or don'ts?

28. Do you think more about hell and demons than heaven and God?

29. Do you try hard to be 'good' to others?

30. Do you boast about your charities?

31. Do you believe that your church is the only true church?

32. Have you tried to memorize the sermon on the mount and other Scriptures which has either a 'do' or a 'don't'?

33. Do you believe that the salvation can be lost?

34. Do you always look for creative ways to hide your shortcomings from others?

35. Do you spend more time trying to clean up others from their sins than telling them about God's love?

36. Are you a believer that you have to keep confessing your sins to God in order to keep you forgiven?

37. Do you like Scriptures like 1 John 1:9 than Scriptures like Heb 10:10?

38. Do you believe that salvation itself is by grace, but sanctification is by 'works' (obedience to the law)?

39. When you visit a Christian book store, do you look for 'how to' books?

40. Do others think that you are good enough, but you feel deep inside that you are falling short?

41. Do you recite/ponder/quote verses like 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling' than other verses like 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'?

42. Do you particularly search for Scriptures which sound as if God's love is conditional?

43. Do you act as if you love sinners, but literally hate them?

44. Do you believe you will go 'out of fellowship' with God if you sin or don't do enough of the spiritual routines such as prayer, bible study, church attendance or 'quiet time with God'?

45. When you talk about list of sins, do you always talk about 'big' ones like adultery and ignore 'small' ones like selfishness, greediness, self-centeredness, pride, envy etc?

46. Have you ever felt that the more you put yourself under more strict laws/rules/principles, the more you are tempted to sin and preoccupied with sinful thoughts? But you still try to make it more stricter?

47. No matter how much you do the 'right' things and abstain from the 'wrong' things, do you still feel it isn't good enough?

48. Do you try to get a LIFE from the scriptures?

49. Do you participate in 'prayer chains' or 'fasting chains' and feel proud about it?

50. Do you show off your spirituality/religiosity?

51. Do you use prayer, fasting, worship, discipline, ministry, tithing, charity, obedience, righteous living etc as tools to please God and earn His favor?

52. Are you motivated/driven by fear rather than love when it comes to your religion/spirituality/relationships?

53. Do you tend to control/manipulate others, especially using fear-tactics?

54. Do you seek/desire after leadership positions at your church? Do you feel that you 'deserve' some positions?

55. Do you feel tempted to correct every false doctrines in the world? Do you spend more time telling others how their religion is wrong?

56. Do you feel proud when your pastor/leader publicly praise your ministerial works?

57. Do you seek to gain more (biblical) knowledge to attract attention of others?

58. Do you feel insecured if your belief/s is challenged and do you frantically look for scriptures to (somehow) defend your belief?

If you answered 'Yes' for at least one of these, you have legalistic traits; if you answered 'Yes' for more than one, you are a 'mild' legalist and the scale goes up to a hardcore Pharisee as the number of 'Yes''s goes up...

I just realized, on a 1 to 10 scale, I come somewhere in the middle :)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Conversation between God and the Legalist

Legalist: Oh God of Abraham, Jacob and Issac, as part of being obedient to your word and commandment, I have decided to fast for the next three days. Bless my fasting. Give me strength to fight temptations of food and drink. I don’t want to be like those pagan Christians who never fast.

God: It sounds like you already know that fasting is going to be hard for you. So it’s better you not fast. I have blessed you with my salvation and will continue to bless you anyways.

Legalist: I am fasting so that I can be much closer to you like I was in the early days.

God: I am living in you.

Legalist: Yes, I mean… No, but that’s only a positional truth. I want your tangible presence.

God: I am living in you.

Legalist: Well, okay! But… I want to restore my fellowship with you which I lost when I sinned last week.

God: I will never leave you nor forsake you. You are my son.

Legalist: I promise you, I will restart my systematic Bible study from next week and I am fasting today so that I can rededicate myself to a more disciplined prayer life and devotion. I ask your forgiveness for not reading my Bible…

God: You are righteous in Christ. You are my beloved son. You are a saint!

Legalist: But,… I still sin… Pls. forgive me. I promise I will take up that nursery ministry at church. I have been feeling so guilty every time pastor brings that topic up.

God: Your sins (past, present and future) have been totally forgiven by the one and only sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Your only work is to believe.

Legalist: I am sorry for skipping the tithe check in the third week of January, 1982.

God: I have accepted you in Christ. I have loved you with perfect love. Nothing can separate you from my eternal love.

Legalist: But I am guilty for not tithing.

God: You have liberty in Christ. You are free from the law.

Legalist: I am sorry for skipping church. I broke Sabbath.

God: Your righteousness comes from Christ, apart from law. You are dead to the law. You cannot be declared righteous through obedience to the law. Law is for those who are under the law, you are free from the law for law makes nothing perfect.

Legalist: I kind of agree but I am sure you didn't mean '10 commandments' when you say law?

God: 2 Cor 3:7-11

Legalist: Pls. fill me with the Holy Spirit

God: My Spirit lives in you since the time you were born-again.

Legalist: Pls. bless me financially, so that I can buy a Cadillac. I promise I will not skip tithe again.

God: My grace is sufficient for you. You are blessed beyond measure in Christ. You may live the rest of the life discovering the treasures you have in Christ.

Legalist: I love you.

God: I have loved you while you were still a sinner.

Legalist: I have sowed the seed of $100 in ORM ministries, I stand on the promise you have given in your word and claim my return - "Give, and it will be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over..."

God: I have blessed you already with everything you need. You are a citizen in heaven, a part-taker of divine nature, child of the most High and seated with Christ in heaven.

Legalist: I am sorry for thinking bad thoughts against my pastor who is my spiritual authority, shepherd and priest.

God: I am the good Sheperd. You have an eternal High Priest in heaven. You are complete in Me.

Legalist: Bless my church for including me in the church-board, I will keep my commitment to work for the growth of our church to my best.

God: The work of the ministry is to believe in Me.

Legalist: I am recommitting my commitment to serve you. Bless me.

God: I have bestowed my great love on you, walk by faith in it. Rest in Me. Believe. Believe. Believe. Walk by FAITH. Know the TRUTH and be free. I am faithful to complete the work I have started in you.

Lagalist: I am feeling hungry due to fasting! Give me strength to stand firm in my commitment to my fasting and prayer today. I am confident I am not going to give up today. I can do this! Yes! Bless me. Bless me for doing this. Bless me! Forgive my sins! Restore my fellowship! Fill me with Holy spirit! Come closer! Come down! Look how I confessed my sins! Look how I marched against evil-doers! Look how dedicated and committed I am! Look how I give my money! Look how devoted I am to my church and denomination! Look what I am doing for you! Look how I stood for Republican party! Look how pro-life am I! Look how I hate sinners! Bless me!


God: ------------

Friday, August 15, 2008

Evolutionists, televangelists and legalists

There are three categories of people I can’t associate myself with:

• The people who believe they were evolved from monkeys
• The televangelists who seek money
• The self-righteous (legalists)

That’s not the full list but these three comes on top. To be honest, I dream of a world without them. These people make me angry. I know I know I am not responding the right way, but I can’t help it. I just think they are foolish, doesn't matter how much skills, education and knowledge they possess.

Evolutionists

There was a time in my life when the teacher at my school showed me a series of pictures explaining how a monkey slowly transformed into a hairless, tailless creature and eventually became a full man (It’s interesting to note that the tail is fully gone today but the hair part not fully 'evolved' yet!). Those pictures showed only males. I am not sure about the women though, I think the assumption is women were evolved from female monkeys and men came from the male monkeys. But anyways, the next Sunday I would go to the Sunday school and there the teacher narrated a totally different story, that we were created by God out of mud. But the interesting thing is, though these two concepts were totally contradicting, I kind of believed both the accounts. I think I was dull and brainless. It seems like there was an unwritten rule that whatever comes from a 'printed media' is believable and unquestionable, especially those comes with the support of so called ‘science’.

About 5 years ago, I read a book called ‘Fearfully and wonderfully made’, written by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. In the book the authors try to portrait a wonderful picture of the complexity and creativity found in human bodies. They went into the interesting details of four different components of human body: cells, bones, skin and motion. Dr. Brand was a missionary doctor, working among leprosy patients in the parts of India. In the book, the facts that were most fascinating to me were about the cells and the skin. The book also have the analogies between the biological and spiritual body, but that part I cared only less.

It was one of my sick days and I was alone at home. I had flu and could hardly sit up or stand. So I brought a comforter to the living room, spread it over, put two pillows on one end, lied down comfortably and started reading this book. When I came to a portion where it says how our body responds to a simple touch on our skin, it kind of blew me away. The 'touch' is such a simple, common thing to us but the things happening behind the scenes are just incredible. The number of cells (probably millions) involved in the action, and how they concentrate to the area where something touched our skin, the message it sends to the brain, brain responds and then we feel the ‘touch’. Feeling a simple touch on our skin itself is a way too complicated process, though it doesn’t appear that way. Dr. Brand worked among leprosy patients and one of the major symptoms of leprosy is that the patients lose their sensitivity to touch and their ability to feel pain on parts of their body. Apparently, even if you stick a knife to such parts of their body, they wouldn't feel the pain! No wonder these patients eventually lose parts of their body. The authors did an incredible job explaining how 'pain' itself is a gift of God - they call it gift of pain.

Not to mention the complexity of our eyes, brain and other organs. There were moments where I couldn’t get off the goose-bumps I was getting from all these. At times I had to get up, stand on my feet and raise my hands to praise the incomprehensible creativity of God. I was filled with awe and wonder. The interesting thing is that the book didn’t particularly talked about the love of God or any such sentimental sides, but still I couldn’t stop praising Him seeing how wonderfully he has created us. The book didn’t even argue against evolution or any of that thing, but on that day I completely, without a tiny bit of doubt, ruled out the foolishness of evolution and it never bothered me ever again. Today I call such 'sciences' foolishness because Bible does so: The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." - Psalm 14:1

Televangelists

Some of the televangelists make me laugh today, and some of them make me want to throw my remote control onto the TV screen and yell. I am talking about the sow-and-reap and Word of Faith breeds. I used to watch a lot of TBN during the days after I became a born-again Christian. I thought Paul Crouch was doing an incredible job through his ministry, reaching millions all around the world. But for some reason, the asking for money (sowing a seed), selling of miracle spring water and hand-kerchiefs etc didn't really resonate well with me. Also, I didn't like the fact the women who came on the screen wore at least 6 layers of make-up and some heavy jewelry and that kind of stuff. I thought something wasn't right.

During that time I used to listen the 'Bible answer man' broadcast on the radio. One of Hank Hanegraaff's books intrigued me and I went ahead and bought it. The book is called 'Christianity in Crisis', which was an end-product of Hank and his ministry's study and research into the secrets of some televangelists, exposing their faulty teachings. To be honest, that book really impacted me. That was the first time I was introduced to some Christian heresy and it made me depressed. As a person coming from a Orthodox background, I thought all born-agianers' were super nice and they believed and taught only biblical truth. I even wanted to give up Christianity when I came to know some of the so called famous Christian evangelists, their teachings, and the way they bend Bible, God and Jesus for their own financial gain. [BTW, I am not a big fan of Hank (based on where I am today in my understanding of God's grace and love) , but that one book really helped me to re-think religion]. I stopped watching all that crap on TBN. Today, if I am in a comedy mood or something, I do watch sometimes, and when I sense the feeling of depression by listening to them, I would change the channel to CNN and watch Larry King live or something like that.

Legalists

So that book 'Christianity in crisis' really gave me a kick-start of my journey out of the junkyard of religion. It was that time that I listened only to Christian radio and Christian music, ate only Christian sandwiches and drove Christian cars. One day I was on my way back to home from work and I heard a tail of 'People to People' broadcast on the christian radio station I was listening to, where this guy called Bob George speaking arrogantly against a caller who claimed that we are still under the obligations of the law, cutting the conversation out, talking against the Holy Law of God, asking people to quit church, and that kind of thing. At first, I was offended and wondered why this guy was still on the radio, that too on a Christian radio! Anyways, the next few days, I heard bits and pieces of his broadcast, and something in it hooked me up with it and I eventually changed my work time so that I could catch the entire 30 minutes broadcast on my way back home.

It could be my frustration towards religion what attracted me to that broadcast, the religion wasn't really working for me. I knew something was wrong but didn't know how to spell it out. You know, they keep preaching about the fruits of Holy Spirit and I even memorized those verses, but honestly, I had none of those fruits in my life. Anyways, I ended up buying Bob George's book called 'Classic Christianity'. I eagerly started reading it from the first page where he starts with a story in which he was crying in his car one day since there wasn't any joy in his life although he was so busy in his ministry. I was shocked and I thought to myself it was my own story. I used to cry in my minivan on my way to work, crying out to God to fill me with His peace and joy (especially on Mondays). I worked for God tirelessly on Sunday, but Monday I was empty, tired and dry.

That book shook my world. The first time I heard the words such as legalism, mixing of law and grace etc. It also introduced to me the truths of finished work of Christ, finality of the cross, total forgiveness in Christ, unconditional love of God, Grace of God, our identity in Christ and it simply started replacing the many errors I had subscribed to for so many years.

And today, I can hardly stand legalism and it's proponents...