If you’re a husband, then you’ve probably experienced the terror of your wife asking you to pick up something she needs from the grocery store. We all know that she has a specific brand, size, price, and color of the item that she requested and you had better get it right. To be fair, most of us as men don’t consider the amount of time and effort our wives put into preparing a meal for our families and therefore don’t understand the importance of getting what she asked for. However, most of us have experienced the tension of giving our wives something different than she asked for. It’s frustrating to ask for something and not receive what you asked for.

We’ve probably also been on the receiving end of this in our relationship with God as well. We are striving to be obedient to His call on our lives and in the meantime we ask Him to take care of our physical needs. Often, He does give us exactly what we’ve asked for as long as our motives are right in our requests. Maybe just as often though, He doesn’t give us what we’ve asked for.

There’s an interesting passage in 2 Corinthians where Paul is asking the Corinthian church to be cheerful and faithful in their giving to the saints in Jerusalem. He challenges them to “sow bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and then he gives them this assurance:

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:8

Maybe it would seem appropriate that if God is asking us to give financially that he would return the favor by blessing us financially - and sometimes He does that. However, the greater promise here is that as we are obedient to God by living with generous hearts, He will make his grace abound to us so that we would have “all sufficiency” (read contentment). While we may hope for financial blessings (temporary), God lavishes on us spiritual blessings (eternal).

The result is that we become even more generous and joyful because no longer are we doing this through our own strength, but the grace and strength He provides us to live with true contentment no matter our circumstances. He sustains us with something far greater than a balanced checkbook and a solid financial future. It may seem impossible to have true contentment when life keeps throwing curveballs at you and it may seem frustrating when God does not give us what we ask Him for; especially when we think we need it. This is why Paul gives us the encouragement in Philippians 4:

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:13

The truth is, if we have Christ, we have enough. He knows your needs (Matthew 6:8), He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7), and He is able to meet them (Matthew 6:33), but in our praying and searching for material provisions, let’s not miss the greater blessing of his grace enabling us to live with real contentment. It is only when we live with true contentment that we can live with true generosity anyway.

We’ve seen it over and over again: Christians with a desire to share their faith getting into heated debates with non-believers. Far too often, these debates are about everything besides the main issue of the gospel - Jesus Christ. There’s a question I’ve been thinking about that should cause us to rethink our evangelism: what would we accomplish if we “won” the last 5 debates we’ve had with unbelievers?

Think about the last conversation you’ve had with an unbeliever about spiritual things - what was the main subject of the discussion? If you had completely convinced them of your side of the argument, would they have been born again in that moment? Maybe the topic was important, but was it focused on the Jesus and the Gospel?

We have so much to learn from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21. One of the main parts of that passage that makes me rethink my evangelism tactics is verses 11-15:

“11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus made the issue about Himself and what it means to be born again. He could have discussed with Nicodemus the work of the Holy Spirit (it’s what Nicodemus inquired about in John 3:9), but He knew that Nicodemus could not understand those things unless he was first “born again.” Nicodemus first approached Jesus because he wanted to ask Jesus about the signs He was performing. Jesus could have gotten into a conversation about where He gets the power and authority for such signs, but He completely redirected the conversation to the issue of being born again. Why?

Jesus knew that the thing that Nicodemus needed before he could understand or believe anything else, was to believe in Him. This wasn’t about winning a debate, it was about winning a soul and debates don’t do that - the Holy Spirit through Gospel proclamation does.

So the next time your conversation with an unbeliever shifts to anything besides Jesus and the Gospel, bring it back to the main thing. Those other topics are highly important, but they are secondary. Furthermore, lost people will not understand spiritual matters until they are first born again - we can’t have spiritual conversations with spiritually dead people. They need the power of the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts to being them to life as the Gospel is proclaimed. In the words of Jesus, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

There is something that shepherds have been known to do to sheep that on the surface sounds brutal and inhumane. If one of the flock (particularly a little lamb) is consistently getting lost and wandering off, the shepherd will find it, break its legs, place it on his shoulders, and nurse it back to health. What happens during the healing process is that sheep learns total dependance on and trust in the shepherd. Because of it’s broken leg, it needs the shepherd more than ever and doesn’t leave his side. More importantly, the shepherd doesn’t leave the sheep’s side.

At first, that causes us to potentially be angry and the shepherd, or offer up other ways to train the sheep. However, if the shepherd continued to allow that sheep to wander, before long, it’s going to be eaten by a predator. By breaking the legs, the shepherd now has the opportunity to keep the sheep safe, but to teach it dependance on the shepherd, which is really the ultimate goal.

By comparison, there’s an aspect of our relationship to our Shepherd that is difficult to talk about, and even more difficult to go through - His discipline. The writer of the book of Hebrews explains it much better than I could:

“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
HEBREWS 12:5-11

Our world has made discipline an enemy of love, but that passage teaches us that it is the very limitless, extravagant, perfect love of God that fuels His discipline of us. As a matter of fact, the author goes so far as to say that if you’ve never experienced the discipline of the Lord, you’re not a legitimate son or daughter. That means that in all of our efforts to avoid the discipline of God and not talk about it because it’s uncomfortable, we’ve avoided one of the indicators that we are His children!

His discipline is always meant to draw us closer and make us more dependent on Him, which leads to holiness and the fruit of righteousness. It may be painful, but it will lead to your greater pleasure in Him. We may be tempted to get angry at Him or think we know a better way for Him to work in our lives, but if we trust Him and the discipline He brings, it will always result in our ultimate good. If He is able to take all the brokenness and sin of our lives and turn it into something beautiful, how much more can He use His very own work of discipline for our good and His glory?

Has God ever broken your legs? How did you respond? You can be sure that if He has brought discipline in your life, it is because He is the Good Shepherd who desires to give you abundant life. In the meantime, you and I must stop our wanderings and depend fully on Him and His leading in our lives.

We live in a DIY (do it yourself) culture. We have figured out how to create really useful tools out of things like plastic soda bottles. If something breaks in our home, there’s probably a YouTube video out there that will walk us through how to fix it - after the person recording the video tells us their life story and why they love cats of course. Not only that, but if we think we are getting sick, a quick search of our symptoms on Web M.D. will quickly allow us to diagnose ourselves with a disease that will surely kill us.

The point is, in the information age, we have the ability to figure out what’s wrong in our lives and what we can do about it. Can this be done with legalism? I would venture to guess that most of us hate legalism and would be willing to do almost whatever it takes to make sure we don’t become legalistic ourselves. Unfortunately, we all have at least some tendencies that border on legalism in our lives. So how can we know if we’re being legalistic, or if we are actually pursuing holiness? I’ve come up with a list that is not exhaustive, but I think may be helpful in examining ourselves to see if we’ve fallen into this slippery slope that we hate so much.

1. The Joy is Gone.

Maybe our best biblical example of legalism would be the Pharisees and religious leaders in the Gospels. Out of every story we read of these men, you would be hard pressed to find even a hint of joy in their lives. Life for them was about keeping the rules, making sure others kept the rules, and adding to the rules to be really sure nobody broke them. Holiness was not a joy-filled pursuit, but hard work that was not for the faint of heart. If you can’t remember the last time prayer, Bible reading, or Christian fellowship stirred true joy in you, you may be showing signs of legalism.

2. Holiness is a Checklist Rather than a Pursuit.

Most of us have experienced the guilt of beginning a Bible reading plan and not following through. The popular “Bible app” has a feature called “streaks” that shows you how many consecutive days you’ve been in the app. I’m willing to bet that many of us have read the Bible on a particular day just to keep our “streak” alive. Legalism causes us to treat following Jesus like a checklist that ensures God still loves us rather than a pursuit of God. Holiness becomes more about checking a box than checking our hearts.

3. Your Standards are Higher for Others than Yourself.

Legalism asks of others more than it asks of ourselves. It holds others to a standard that we pray God doesn’t hold us to. In this way legalism becomes its own fatal flaw. The more we focus on how others are measuring up, the less we pay attention to our own walk and the further we drift away from the very standards we are holding others to. Pretty soon, our lives are flooded with the sins we spend all our time condemning others for.

4. You Can’t Celebrate Others’ Spiritual Success.

In John 9, the Pharisees spent so much time condemning the man born blind that they never actually celebrated his healing. Their immediate reaction was to ensure that he didn’t “cross the line” by giving glory to Jesus for this healing. While we don’t necessarily handle things exactly like the Pharisees, our legalism can often quench the joy and zeal of others because we never celebrate spiritual victories in their lives. Encouragement of others can quickly starve out our legalism because if we are able to celebrate their success, we won’t have as much time to condemn them for their failures.

5. People have Stopped Asking you for Spiritual Advice.

Jesus says of the legalistic Pharisees that “…they (the sheep) will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:5). Legalism steals from, kills, and destroys others. So why would they continue coming to you when you continue to burden them with guilt and shame rather than pointing them to repentance and redemption? If people avoid you when it comes to spiritual guidance and direction, it might just be because you’ve become a Pharisee, and they are looking for Jesus.

How loudly are you breathing right now? By that simple question, I have probably made you think about something your body has been doing almost without thought all day. Our lungs fill with air, our heart beats, our organs function, and all our body continues to live often without us even giving the process of life a second thought. God is the giver and sustainer of that physical life. When we are not even considering the functions of our bodies, He is continuing to keep us alive. And there is an even greater life still that He gives to us:

John 6:57 - "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me."

It's a powerful thing to say that Jesus came to bring us life (John 10:10). This verse adds another mind-blowing level of glory to that truth. Jesus is saying that in the same way that He has life because of the Father, we have life because of Jesus. We could mine the riches of this statement for all eternity and still only scratch the surface of its beauty.

For those that feed on (believe in) Jesus Christ, they are united with the life of Jesus in much the same way that the life of Jesus is united with the Father, and the Holy Spirit in us is the proof of this (Ephesians 1:13). This is why the concept of the Trinity shouldn't remain in thick and dusty books on theology. The truth and life of the Trinity is at work in us every single day, providing the life and grace that we need to walk in the works that God prepared for us.

This truth is also why you can't find satisfaction anywhere else but in Christ. If your very life comes from Him, then to search for life anywhere else is quite literally a pointless pursuit. It's on the same level of absurdity as eating dirt, hoping that it will sustain your hunger and keep you alive - it won't because it can't. For us to search for life outside of Jesus is as absurd as Jesus searching for life outside of the Father. If you think that language is too strong, you don't quite understand what it means to be in Christ and to "live because of Him."

To make this truth even more encouraging, let me point out also that this is why once we are "in Christ," we cannot lose that position and status. It's not possible for you to lose your salvation because you've been united in Him in much the same way that He is united to the Father. This is just another reason why it's called "Amazing Grace." To believe in Jesus is to be united with Him forever. The reason you can't lose your salvation is because you didn't purchase it in the first place - Jesus did - and He's the "author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2).

What do we do with all of this? Well, there's about a thousand applications of this truth. My encouragement to you would be to rest in it today. Meditate on your life in Christ and what that means for you because of the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf. Rest in Jesus with more confidence than you place in your heart continuing to beat without your input. He gave you life and He will sustain your life. That's Good News if I ever heard it.