One of the biggest struggles we have, regardless of our faith or belief in Christianity, is legalism; the temptation to look for a list of rules instead of freedom.

Whenever I talk to anyone about any struggle, the answer they are looking for often resides in a list of rules — trying to lose weight? Tell me what I can and cannot eat — trying to get out of debt? Give me the ten things I have to do.

I do this all the time in leadership. I’ll meet someone who is further ahead, and my mind goes to what are the 3-5 things they did that I need to do.

Now, this isn’t necessarily wrong. It gets at the motivation and what we hope will come from these steps.

The problem is when we look to our list of rules to make us whole, to redeem us, save us.

In Christian terms, it is when we look to rules and how we behave to make us right with God, more accepted by God or ultimately, more loved by God.

In human terms, legalism helps us to feel superior to other people.

Here’s one of the things I run into though, while we all struggle with this, many of us don’t think we do this as much as we do.

How do you know if you’re falling into legalism? 

1. Why do you feel guilty about something?

We all have guilt. We feel it for different reasons.

I remember when I first became a Christian, I would try to reach my bible and pray first thing in the morning. I was told, Jesus got up while it was dark to pray, so that’s what I was supposed to do. The problem was, I’m not a morning person, and so I would fall asleep. Then I would beat myself up about it because a good Christian didn’t fall asleep while praying.

Why did I feel guilty? I wasn’t good enough.

The reality is though; a good Christian can read their bible and pray any time of day. And, falling asleep while praying isn’t a sin. I can’t think of a better time to fall asleep.

Good guilt would’ve been feeling guilty that I am missing out on being with Jesus.

2. Do you feel more or less free after doing something?

This gets at how you handle when guilt happens in your life because we all have guilt and shame we carry.

Here’s why this question lines up with legalism: what I’ve learned about rule-followers is we don’t know how to feel anything but guilt. Most of us don’t know what freedom feels like, and because of that, we don’t go for it.

3. Do you want people to know, or are you okay if it is anonymous?

This is a good one.

When you follow one of your rules, do something that makes you feel more spiritual or superior to someone; do you want people to know?

Do you want people to know how much you give? Serve? Can you read your bible without posting a verse on Instagram? Do you spend more time posting something good you did than actually doing something right?

The flip side, do you post things to get sympathy from people to tell you that you aren’t a failure? This is the “well that happened” post on Facebook. Parents do this all the time. We do this with our boss. So people will say, “I see you, and you are awesome.” But why does their opinion matter? Why does your kid’s opinion matter? Have you noticed, the view of someone else can crush us? Why?

Because we struggle to live free.

4. Do you feel more alive and closer to Christ or less?

Jesus said in John 10 that he came to give life. Be honest for a moment, if you’re a follower of Jesus, do you feel alive? Or do you feel exhausted? Do you feel like you are overflowing with life, you can’t handle how much life you have in Jesus?

Keeping rules is exhausting. Impossible for us. It is a burden we carry that we aren’t meant to carry.

There are two ways in Christian circles: through Jesus or legalism or ourselves.

Here’s the thing, as a follower of Jesus, you would say there is nothing you could do to earn salvation, life with God, but we live as if we could win his love. That what we do keeps us following Jesus or proves that we are following Jesus. What shows we are following Jesus is God’s love for us.

As we grow in our faith, to become more like Jesus, we think it rests entirely on us.

Many of us think our behavior determines whether our relationship with God is good or bad. But Christianity has never been about following rules; it has been about following Jesus.

Jesus is more interested in the person you become than the rules you keep.