Turning 40: Notes to My Younger Self. #5 Discipline and Legalism

#5. Discipline and Legalism

In thinking that life was black and white, I spent much of my time focusing on following the law and doing the right thing, staying the course.

My goal was to be perfect, to be right, to have no wrong.

There is no wrong in that. There is no wrong in wanting to do right and to be right.

The wrong comes when the sole focus becomes about doing right and on being right for the sake of merit. The perceived merit becomes an arrogant badge of pride and perfectionism. The desire becomes that of one wanting to be seen as good.

That is what legalism is, being good to gain merit or favor with God. Legalism becomes the crux of the spiritual relationship and people begin to measure their value by their deeds, not their heart. They begin to ask themselves the question, “have I done enough”? They fear they have not worked hard enough to please God and they are not worthy of heaven. They fear a lack of value due to insufficient deeds.

And at other times, legalism can evolve to the point that people do good not only to gain merit or favor with God, but also from people. In time, they can become like the Pharisee praying in the temple (Luke 18) to be seen and heard by man and not necessarily heard by God. That narcissistic focus of legalism is void of heart and becomes like the empty sacrifices of King Saul.

I spent a good deal of time trying to build a relationship with God through legalism. Doing good to win favor. Doing right to be right, believing this would grant me favor and merit.

What I did not understand, though, was that focusing on my actions left no real room for God, for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit, I left no real need for the Holy Trinity. I did not understand that I could never really do enough. Sadly, I did not appreciate that the Trinity had already done it all for me.  So, I spinned my wheels working, doing, attempting to earn.

You would periodically ask yourself if you had done enough, if you were good enough, if you were worthy enough. But a time will come when life will shake you. You will realize the absurdity of those questions and the true irrelevance they possess.

You will begin to evaluate the focus of your life. You will find that the focus is not to earn merit with God through legalism, but that the focus is to love God and to want to please him. Wanting to please Him comes through discipline and through true discipleship, not legalism.

In time, you will see how true discipline yields the spiritual relationship that you wanted. When your heart and your behavior change from legalism (focusing on what I can do to please God) to discipline (focusing on loving and pleasing God by what I do), then you begin to understand the true unconditional love of the Trinity.

Living a God-centered life through discipline versus a me-centered life through legalism results in a very different focus, a very different heart, a very different spiritual relationship with the Trinity. It also provides a great deal of peace, as you realize grace is not having to be good out of fear, but wanting to be good in love.