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 :)

'Benefits' of being in the institutional church.

To be honest, there are some 'benefits' being in the institutional church for a while and then leave, so that today I can have little fun sharing my experiences with you.

• I can share the torment, heart ache, judgment, foolishness, lifelessness and the double talk I went through with another soul today who is trapped in religion.
• I can chuckle on some of the double standards I held.
• Think and wonder how self-righteous I was.
• How I tried to split the doctrinal hairs of many minor issues in the Bible, while I had everything wrong on the majors in the Bible.
• Today I can share the stories with someone else (who can relate) how difficult it was to hide my true face with a smiley mask.
• How desperately I wanted to sell ‘Jesus’ and evangelize the entire world but couldn’t get even a single soul to the magic level of 'sinner’s prayer'.
• How I admired those with seminary degrees and PhD’s at the end of their names; and felt a bit envious about them seeing all the respect and admiration they get from people.
• How reverent I was in the presence of people with a ‘Rev.’ in front of their names.
• How faithful I was in my tithing that I felt so good, self-righteous and prideful after putting each check in the offering plate.
• How difficult it was to welcome the old ex-prostitute who came to the door and how difficult was it to love her.
• How heated the debate was do determine whether to let her participate in the Lord's supper since she wasn't baptized.
  
• What a perfect devotion I had towards the ‘authority’ of the church and how submissive I was to them.
• How wonderful I felt when they talked about the possibility of including me in the church board.
• The privileges I enjoyed as being an 'official member' of the church and I even dreamed about the nice things people would tell about me during my funeral.
• How wonderful the food was in the fellowship hours after the service and I always appreciated those ice creams and pizzas people brought for their children's birthdays.
• How much sins I confessed during the endless alter calls Sunday after Sunday, and still wondered and worried if I were really forgiven, even saved.
• How beautiful it was to memorize the fruits of the spirit and I find it even challenging to memorize it in the order it is written in Bible; but didn’t have a clue what it was like bearing those fruits in real life.
• How enthusiastically I looked forward to each 'service' in order to get a boost to my spiritual energy.
• How (righteously) angry I was at my wife for being late to dress up kids to go to church on Sunday mornings.
• What a struggle it was to 'keep' my salvation and how much I searched internet to study how conditional the salvation was.
• How desperately I wanted to pursue holiness and acceptance through - fasting, prayer, Bible study, charity, dedication, church work and service.
• How much I admired faith healers and wished (secretly) if I could do the 'blowing' like them so that the entire people in the auditorium would fall like dead bodies.
• How I wanted to show off the thick Bibles/concordances/study tools etc I owned.
• How great I felt when the pastor once told that I pray very well and effectively after listening to one of my public prayers.
• How much I looked forward for the mention of my name by the pastor from pulpit about the tireless services I did for the church.
• How I felt so worthy when once pastor publicly praised me for giving a ride for a family who didn't have a car and lived far away.
• How accurately I learned to define salvation as a step by step process starting from Romans 10:9
• How angry I used to get at the slow old lady drivers while speeding to the church On Sunday mornings while blaming my wife all the way for being late.
• How many times I have used the 'F' word (in my heart) at the sluggish drivers while driving to the 'House of the Lord'!
  
• What a terrible fight my wife and I used to have during the 30 minutes drive to church; but after stepping into the building how cleverly we tried to appear as if we were the happiest couple in the world.
• How wisely I thought it was my wife's job to take care of the kids during the service letting her husband to attend the service and gain all the insights from the preaching, which (I thought) she couldn't gain even if she attended!
• What a dirty hypocrite was I! What a white washed tomb was I! How much I dragged the 'filthy rags' all along...
  

Aaah... Thank God for rescuing me from the unauthentic, hypocritical, self-righteous, unreal, dishonest lifestyle of a Pharisee... and humbling me and putting me back on the solid ground of your awesome grace where love and love alone reigns all the more. Hallelujah!

What a relief it is to be free from institutionalism!