Confessions of a Closet Pharisee

{& the baby stepping process of breaking free from the chains of legalism}

Until this summer, if you'd have asked me if I believed in works based righteousness I would have adamantly denied it. This denial surely would have come with a free recitation of some passages about how your works come from the overflow of your faith or a talk about how we can't earn our salvation.

After a long process of deep soul searching, some bumpy roads, and a lot of disgruntled growing - I realized that, while my mouth was saying those things, my heart and mind weren't on board. I knew in my words that I wasn't saved by my works or my apparent amount of "holiness" but in fact by my faith alone. Somehow this has always been a hard concept for me to grasp, I just didn't realize it at the time. Somehow, the translation was lost between my tongue and my heart.

Until this summer, I never felt the freedom that should always accompany the gospel. My relationship with Christ came with the chains that I believed had to follow when understanding the law. There was my mistake. I viewed the law as some form of slavery. Sure I'd been saved from the darkness and slavery to sin, but I felt like I'd gone from one terrible master to a lesser of the two evils. I felt enslaved to the law. Burdened by my sin, and brought down by the law's ability to constantly remind me of what a failure I was.

I was exhausted. I was discouraged. I constantly felt the weight of my shortcomings and my failures. And most of all I was burned out. As I tried to fulfill the law on my own, missing hoop after hoop, my discouragement grew with every failure. Throughout the summer I grew angry with God. In my exhaustion I reached the end of my ability to handle my own failures day after day. Slowly, throughout a season of anger, the Lord whispered to the depths of my heart.

It's been a process. Baby stepping my way out of my chains and little by little gaining the true peace and freedom that should accompany the gospel. The law doesn't enslave, it frees. That something I've learned the hard way. I always wanted to live up to God's standards. I felt like, somehow, I had to work for His love and affection - that maybe, if I lived up to His desires He'd love me. However, that's not how God's love works. No matter what I do, I can't make Him love me any more or less. Unconditional love is one of the hardest things for me to grasp. I don't have to live up to the law, in fact - I CAN'T fulfill the law. The law shows me how I fail, but Jesus already fulfilled God's standards - so I'm free to fall short and fail. I've found that through this freedom my desire to follow His laws is so much greater.
It's been a crazy journey, a bumpy road, and I don't feel like I've had time to catch my breath yet. I'm beginning to see that the law is, in fact, there for our own good - which of these rules would we benefit from getting rid of? None of them. They're all in place so we can live the best lives possible.

The closer I grow to God, the more I desire to serve Him. Now, instead of seeing the law as chains and slavery. I can't do it on my own, and I don't have to. Relying on God for strength and joy has been one of the best decisions I've made this semester.

Thanks, Lord for:
Lessons, growing pains, Your incredible faithfulness, grace, the law, the gospel, snow, the great outdoors, NOOSA greek yogurt (yum yum yum), protein, dancing, and the hope of Christmas break.

Resurgence Articles I'm resonating with this week:
A. http://theresurgence.com/2010/12/28/i-just-need-to-give-myself-grace
B. http://theresurgence.com/2012/11/23/the-cure-for-backsliding?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=theresurgence&utm_campaign=The%2BResurgence%2BTwitter
C. theresurgence.com/2012/10/24/6-warning-signs-were-becoming-accidental-pharisees
D. http://theresurgence.com/2012/10/24/i-see-you-and-i-judge
E. http://theresurgence.com/2012/08/01/the-3-chains-of-legalism

Fearless Surrender

Confessions of a Closet Pharisee

Aunica

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