Underlined Bits




"Despite God’s call to be free and His earnest admonition to resist all efforts to curtail it, there is very little emphasis in Christian circles today on the importance of Christian freedom. Just the opposite seems to be true. Instead of promoting freedom, we stress our rules of conformity. Instead of preaching living by grace, we preach living by performance. Instead of encouraging new believers to be conformed to Christ, we subtly insist that they be conformed to our particular style of Christian culture. Yet, that’s the bottom line effect of most of our emphases in Christian circles today.

For example, many people would react negatively to my quoting only part of Galatians 5:12, “You, my brothers, were called to be free.” Despite the fact that this statement is a complete sentence, they would say, “But that’s not all of the verse. Go on to quote the remainder: ‘But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’”

The person who reacts this way has made my point. We are much more concerned about someone abusing his freedom than we are about his guarding it. We are more afraid of indulging the sinful nature than we are of falling into legalism. Yet legalism does indulge the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride. It also diverts us from the real issues of the Christian life by focusing on external and sometimes trivial rules.”

– Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace, pp. 121-122

2 comments:

Tyne said...

Wow. Just wow. Thanks for directing me to this quote. I see this as the Lord's awesome goodness. My husband and I met with a couple the other night and they were CRUSHED by legalism. So much so that they were questioning the existance of God and what a relationship with Him looks like. I am going to look for that book. I think I found you through Edie's blog, but I am not sure. Have a great week.

Sheila Atchley said...

I am sadly not surprised by the couple you met with, and their situation. Legalism takes the life right out of a believer. Don't you agree that few take seriously ENOUGH what the Bible says, when it says, "The letter of the law KILLS..."

That Edie is the cutest thing. I like her blog!