Legalism

CTK is a "grace-based" organization. Interestingly, many of the pastors and key leaders have had previous experience in legalistic church groups. I grew up in a very legalistic group (I was a “pharisee of the pharisees”), but now that I am “free” I could never go back. I know all too well the problems with legalism, and there are at least five....

1. The “whose church is this?” problem....by establishing our own rules and regulations for the church and the people in it, we run the risk of forgetting that this is God’s church, not ours.

2. The “big sin, little sin” problem....by picking out some sins and saying nothing about others, we send a message that there are big sins we can't tolerate; others are the “little sins” that we can live with.

3. The “enforcement” problem....by having a standard that is not strictly Biblical we place ourselves in the predicament of having to enforce something without scriptural authority.

4. The “hypocrisy” problem....since there is usually spotty enforcement we set up an environment of hypocrisy, where we imagine that we have a church full of “saints" when, in fact, we know deep down that we do not.

5. The "growing list" problem....when you begin to make lists of sins, you head down a path of ever increasing list-making, and standard keeping, because there is always one more sin out there that needs to be addressed. In the end, however, spirituality is not attained through the keeping of lists, but by a heart that seeks after God.

Legalists believe that we achieve a standing with God by what we do, or don’t do. It is a great day when you come to realize that our standing with God is not based on what we have done for Him, but based on what He has done for us. God loves us in spite of who we are and what we’ve done, not because of who we are and what we’ve done. There is nothing that we can do that will make God love us more, and there is nothing that we can do that will make God love us less. They don’t call it “amazing grace” for nothing!