One of the things that so many of us struggle with is legalism. The idea that we can earn our way to God, that our obedience to God can make us more loved by God, and get more of God’s attention or pleasure. 

What makes legalism so attractive is that it is about keeping score. It is something I can do on my own, without God. And it can make me feel superior to others. 

What is sneaky about legalism is that the list of rules we focus on is found in the Bible, but it is selective. When we focus on “what a good Christian should do,” we focus on things we are already doing. Things that come naturally to us. So we can feel better about things. 

We rarely choose things we aren’t good at or don’t like doing. 

For many of us, after following Jesus, we start to focus on following a list of rules. Slowly, though, these rules become all about us, and we begin to see our actions as our salvation.

We don’t need Jesus for any of this.

Christianity becomes about self-imposed rules, which makes us feel safe and happy.

But Christianity has never been about following rules; it has been about following Jesus.

How do you know if you’re falling into legalism? Here are 4 questions:

Why do you feel guilty for something?

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

I remember when I first became a Christian, I would try to read my bible and pray first thing in the morning. I was told that Jesus got up in the dark to pray, so that’s what I was supposed to do. The problem was that I’m not a morning person, 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 at any time of day. And, falling asleep while praying isn’t a sin. In fact, I can’t think of a better time to fall asleep.

Good guilt would’ve been feeling guilty for missing out on being with Jesus.

Do you feel more or less free after doing something?

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

We all have defense mechanisms that protect us when we sin or do something we wished didn’t do:

Some of us lash out. We hurt those closest to us. We try to push people down so even if we feel low, we can make them feel lower.

Some of us say, “It’s fine,” and just shut it down. In relationships, you might stonewall and walk out of the room during an argument. This is the same. It is a power move, but it protects us from having to deal with things. What this does is keep us from feeling guilty (or so we think) and from having to deal with everyone else’s feelings about my actions.

Some of us go for attention. Whether that is our bodies and sex appeal, playing up the victim card, or being babied by someone.

Some go to the funny guy. This is one that many people stuck in addiction do. Humor often is a deflection in our lives, especially when guilt rolls in.

And lastly, we use the religious defense. This is the “yeah but…” or “what about…” reaction. Yeah, but they’re worse. Yeah, but I memorized all those verses, went on that mission trip, did all that other stuff. We do this to ourselves, to others, and to God.

Here’s why this question lines up with legalism: what I’ve learned about rule followers is that we don’t know how to feel anything but guilt. 

Most of us don’t know what freedom actually feels like, and because of that, we don’t go for it. 

Paul is trying to give us a vision of what could be and show us that it is greater than you could imagine.

Do you want people to know, or are you fine 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 good?

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 that someone else’s opinion can crush us? Why?

Because we struggle to live free.

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.