My wife and I used to argue with our son over his chores. We were trying to get him to do what was right. One day I had an idea. When he came home from school I told him, “Darren, Mom and I have been talking and we have decided you do not have to do your chores anymore; you can even skip your homework if you want to.” He was in blissful shock! After a pause I continued, “But you cannot have any privileges such as TV, computer, or spending time with friends either, unless you take care of your responsibilities. We love you and we are not going to pressure you or argue anymore. We’d love for you to have your privileges but they only come with responsibility.”

He tested it and we did not get angry or pressure him or shame him. We did not even close our hearts toward him at all; we were quite friendly and loving. The entire next day, however, he did not have any privileges. After a time or two the battle was over and now it is never a fight to see him take care of his chores and homework.

Gal 5:1, 2 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.

What is Legalism?

Is legalism the judgmental Pharisees of the Bible? Is it the church where women cannot wear makeup? What is its underlying principal?

I believe law is based in man’s efforts and in fear. If I can make a rule about something, then I can take things into my own hands, be in control and create my own “security.” This is all fear motivated. I am afraid God will not be there for me and that is what moves me toward law.

The whole world system and man’s fallen nature pushes us toward law. In the verses above, the Galatians knew truth and freedom but the traditions of a lifetime – fears they might not measure up – and the pressure of peers, all served to push them back toward circumcision.

Once I start moving towards law, things now depend on me; I am afraid I may not measure up and so I feel pressure all the time. What if I cannot meet my own needs? What if I cannot measure up and be acceptable?

Legalism is About Control

If I do not trust someone to do the right thing, I apply some pressure. Rules are applied through tactics of intimidation, anger, shaming and fear. We make statements to our children like, “What’s wrong with you?”  A sales manager states, “Whoever is at the bottom of the sales board at the end of the month will be fired.” A minister preaches, “You are either for God or against Him; if you aren’t giving to evangelism (or the building project, or the mission trip…) you won’t be blessed;” or “Jesus died on the cross for us and we can’t even give Him our best?”

Our identities get tied into these things. Fear that our son or employee or church member might make us look bad, might hinder us from applying rules and being successful, acceptable.

How We Motivate Others

At the moment we accepted Jesus, God could have installed in us a zapper, like those electronic collars for dogs used with the invisible fence. The electrical wire is buried under ground and when the dog with the collar crosses it he gets a “zap!” He very quickly learns where he can and cannot go. God could have done that with us at salvation. We go to spread a little gossip, tell a lie or express some lust and “Zaaap!” If this were the case, I believe the body of Christ would quickly rise to whole new levels of obedience, BUT… would it be outward conformity? Would it simply be obedience based on law and fear?

In the early 1500s, Martin Luther restored to the church understanding about Jesus Christ. This spawned years of revival based around concepts of salvation, redemption, and righteousness. In the 1800s there began Holiness and Pentecostal movements, that led to the healing revivals and the Charismatic movement and others that restored to the church understanding about the Holy Spirit.

In the early 1970s James Dobson began teaching that the family is important and how we parent makes a difference. He suffered persecution for this in the early days. In the latter 1970s John and Paula Sanford started teaching that, it not only matters how we parent but also how we were parented. They received much persecution for these concepts and yet today it is widely held that how we were fathered and mothered has a big impact on us and if there is resultant wounding it needs to be healed.

The Feasts

The Passover feast brings focus to Jesus. Pentecost points to the Holy Spirit. I believe the Feast of Tabernacles will emphasize the Father. Malachi 4:5-6: “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Fathering

We have a fatherless generation on the earth today. Fathers give us our identity, security, and destiny. I believe in the final move of God there will be a huge emphasis here. Teaching will abound and older believers will know how to father newer believers into both wholeness and walking out their callings effectively. Broken, spectator Christianity will come to an end!

1 Corinthians 4:15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers…

“I don’t think about negative things, I confess good things.” “I’m a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things are passed away.”

Is this walking in victory - no matter how many times the negative thoughts come I am able to cast them down? Is it a matter of building my willpower to the point of never resorting to depression or anger or giving in to ice cream?

How can I know if I have overcome in a particular area? What is the fruit of true healing?

There is a concept of maintenance free victory, a victory wherein we do not have to use constant willpower. This is a place of not having to rebuke the devil constantly, nor of casting down thoughts and imaginations continuously. We are free. If a negative thought does arise we can easily cast it aside and that is the end of it, there is no continual battle. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes this well:

“And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky, nor are we afraid. That is our experience.” p.84

What many people call healing is actually denial.

We hide from our strongholds with defense mechanisms, fearing to give up the only control we know to try to feel safe and get our needs met.

The huge trap of the enemy is to either keep us in denial or get us to face things in our own strength, which leads to failure, frustration, and giving up. The secret to freedom is to discover the lie that hinders us from trusting God. Then it is easy – we will not need denial anymore. We can have victory without white knuckle Christianity!

2 Timothy 2:3, 4 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

1 Corinthians 3:14, 15 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

The US is perhaps one of the more difficult places in the world to be a Christian. When times are good it is difficult not to focus on the good life, the American dream. There is so much pressure from media, peers, and even some preaching, to save for a good retirement, to take nice vacations, to live in nice homes and drive nice cars. We want the best for our kids and try to get them on the right sports teams and into the right colleges. All these things are not necessarily bad as long as they do not replace the main thing.

If I lay up treasure in heaven, no one can take that away from me. If I seek to grow in spiritual authority, the government can take my house, even throw me in jail—yet I can lead the guy in the next cell to the Lord. Perhaps some of the fear we are experiencing in this time of economic crisis is rooted in too much focus on the temporal and not enough on the eternal.

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

I have found it a slippery thing to have expectations toward man. I have realized that any time I am angry that someone did not meet my needs, or if I am resentful, feeling like things are unfair, I am looking to man instead of God. Whenever I seek to pressure or manipulate others, I am looking to man. James clearly says, “Every good gift is from above, and comes down from the Father” (Ja.1:17). Every gift, all of them, is from Father. God often uses human means as His conduit to bless us, but He is still our source.

I have been on a lifetime journey of learning to look only to God for my needs and to allow God to determine how He wants to meet them and in what order. At age 21, I felt a call to ministry and had already read about some of the great men of faith: Reese Howells, Smith Wigglesworth, Praying Hyde. I knew that was my path, to be a mighty revivalist. However, ministry did not happen right away for me and, as it did happen, it was nowhere even close to unfolding as I had imagined. I ended up pasturing a church of poor subsistence farmers and their families on the mission field. I felt it was far away from the tangible anointing Reese and Smith seemed to have had, and not even on the level of a respectable American church.

One day I had a thought: “These third-world people are every bit as precious to God as anyone, anywhere, in any church. I would just as soon be here as anywhere.” Something happened that day. I quit trying to tell God what He needed to do for me and acknowledged that He gives me all the things I need for life and godliness (2 Pet.1:3). I also quit trying to determine when He should give me what I need, acknowledging He has the master plan and He alone knows the timing.

I developed an incredible love for those people that continues to this day. Moreover, little did I know, it was preparing me to minister cross-culturally all around the world. God really did have a sequence for my life that was perfect. God has a dynamic plan for all of us. As long as we are disappointed in man for not meeting our need or we are disappointed in God for not giving us what we think He should or when we think He should, we will be hindered. Acknowledging He has given us everything we need and going to Him over and over to unpack things according to His plan and timing leads to a life full of adventure and fulfillment.

Acceptance versus Judgment

There is no acceptance in the shame system, rather everything is “weighed in the balance” and usually you are “found wanting”. Therefore, there is no flexibility and no room for error. You are either right or wrong. These families do not consider life events on their own merits; rather they judge the person as right or wrong. So secrecy becomes huge. I tried waiting a long time before going home that day. I wanted to see if the swelling would go down and maybe Dad would not notice. Facing my dad’s disappointment and anger only added to the sense of shame I already felt. I could not have put it into words back in those days, but something in me knew it was not okay to have lost a fight. It was not okay to have weakness of any kind; I was either right, or I was out. There was neither comfort nor help to overcome, only judgment and more shame.

Vulnerability

In a respect-based family, the pain would have been just as bad from the fight but I would not have feared going home. I would not have felt “on the outside” with my own family. I would have known Dad would have been on my side. I could have expressed my feelings of indignation to a listening ear that would not ‘weigh me in the balance’ but would have shown comfort and empathy. Merle Fossum says, “People in respect-based families talk openly with one another about their lives rather than manage their relationships with secrets. They are openly vulnerable and dependent or needy at times without judgment.”   

Intimacy with Man and God

In my struggle that day, intimacy and personal development could have grown. I could have learned that I will receive comfort in my weakness, that it is okay to fail, and okay not to be perfect. I could have grown in empathy and ability to live in community. Instead, my pain was denied and judged, which taught me to isolate and have unrealistic standards of perfectionism-only perfect people that can defeat a whole gang of kids are accepted.   

Shame does not just disappear on its own. If we cannot show vulnerability and weakness to people and still feel okay about ourselves, we will not have a capacity for that kind of intimacy with others or even God. This is why people put on masks and try to appear successful or hyper-spiritual. It has been prophesied for years that there will be an end-time people that know their God, walk in radical intimacy and do exploits (Daniel 11:32). I do not believe it will happen by accident. It will happen as we learn principles from the Bible and apply them.

If the consequences of our sins can be made real enough, will the sinners get saved and the saints get right? Is fear an effective motivational tool?

Ps 36:1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.

Most unsaved people face tragedies in their lives. They lose loved ones, lose everything financially, or contract a life-threatening disease, and many times still don’t turn to the Lord. Take it a step further and consider people that have even gone to prison. Many had no fear of God whatsoever as they committed their crimes. They were angry-at their parents, at God-and felt they got a raw deal in life. They were rebellious and wanted what they wanted so they broke laws. The fear of God was not a motivating factor for keeping them from doing what they did.

Think of a hard dictator, Kim Jung-il in North Korea, for example. In this country, people do live in fear, do have a level of obedience toward their ruler, but it is only outward conformity, not inward respect. Jack Frost used to say, “Only love matures”.

Obedience, where we have a deep respect for God, is born out of a heart of love and humility. It is where I am beginning to trust God, laying aside my ways of anger and rebellion. I believe those who preach how angry God is, and how much trouble we are all in, have very little effect motivating anyone toward true heart humility and obedience-inward conformity.

From Vine’s: Fear “Yirah” (OT:3374) – This is not simple fear, but reverence, whereby an individual recognizes the power and position of the individual revered and renders him proper respect. In this sense, the word may imply submission to a proper ethical relationship to God; the angel of the Lord told Abraham: “…I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.”

The fear of God that is productive, that causes us to start having wisdom, comes from a relationship with God. It is a reverence, an awe, a deep holy respect-built on love and personal connection, not on “fear tactics”.

• God has gotten His feelings hurt, can no longer contain Himself and so is pouring out His Judgment?
• Are they saying He is absolutely sick and tired of His people simply not obeying Him and committing abortion and sexual sin?
• Did the level of sin take God by surprise as though He did not know the future or that people would not eventually get it together? H
• Can God who walks in love, walk in wrath toward others?

Is this what they’re saying?

Luke 9:54-55 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.”

In these verses, we see the disciples having an image of Father God as being punitive-one who’s looking to inflict punishment. Jesus never emulated this type of character, but somewhere they had to have learned this father concept. Someone, at some point in their lives, must have communicated to them a harsh, angry authority. I believe that those in the church today who are saying that America is finished, that it will become a third-world nation, that it will be completely destroyed and those that escape will be the ones who return to Europe and Africa, are simply hurt little boys in grown-up bodies. To have the view that God is angry and looking to punish America for all the sin here, simply means that they themselves probably grew up wounded by a punishing, vindictive authority rather than a loving, disciplining father-type. Instead of seeking Him to find healing for their wounds, they have formed a whole theology around their wounding.

It does say in Romans 1:18 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Notice the wrath is toward man’s actions of ungodliness and unrighteousness, not man himself. Yet when I have heard people preach this, I have almost never heard it presented in this way. It is usually presented in a way that produces fear in people. I believe people are the most precious and valuable thing in the sight of God. He sent His only Son to die on the cross for people. I believe God hates sin, not people. He hates sin because sin hurts what He cares about the most.

We have all seen the popular books and movies about a pre-tribulation rapture and then God letting the earth really have it. What if God’s plan was to make salvation available to the uttermost, to the very end?

Romans 8:19 says the whole world is waiting on the manifestation of the sons of God-the time when God’s people will embrace full sonship, full submission based on self-sacrificial love. What has the world seen up until now? They have seen the busyness of spiritual orphans, striving to get an inheritance rather than resting in the love and provision they already have from their Father.

What if the book of Revelations is God’s love letter to the earth? What if the apocalypse is where God finally puts an end to the dominance of sin so people would quit being hurt by it? What if it was also God’s plan to not only be extremely passionate in the fire of His love to stop sin, but to also use that same fire to give people every possible and conceivable chance to be saved and healed?

I do not know exactly how the end times will play out. Personally, I do not believe anyone does. I think it will all come together and make sense only as we get close enough to it. But I do believe Jesus is coming back for a victorious church as opposed to rapturing out a defeated one just before His indignation falls.

I believe we are slowly coming into the most exciting times the Body of Christ has ever seen. I am already seeing people healed from wounding, sometimes in a single ministry session, which used to take 15 years to deal with. I believe this is just the barest beginnings of the grace that will be released in these last days that will cause us to: arise, shine; for our light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon us, and his glory shall be seen upon us. And the Gentiles shall come to our light, and kings to the brightness of our rising (Isaiah 60:1-3).

2 Corinthians 1:12 (paraphrased)-”Our source of rejoicing is the testimony of our conscience, that we have conducted ourselves in simplicity and sincerity, not by our own efforts but by God’s grace.” The word simplicity in the Greek has a double meaning: first-no dissimulation, disguising one’s intentions under a feigned appearance or to conceal one’s true feelings; and second-a generosity, an openness of heart manifesting itself by generosity.

When I think of simplicity, I think of a person who is friendly to everyone; one who has no bone to pick with anyone. I see a person that has found simplicity as someone who has lost his reserve or guardedness-but in a good way. He longer feels the need to guard and protect his heart to keep it from being hurt again. This person shows a sincere interest in others with no need to dominate conversations, no need to neither prove points nor be dogmatic. He lives from the heart. He trusts God to meet his needs of love, affirmation, purpose and security, so he is not compelled to seek these in other ways and through people.

I believe the hour is coming when the body of Christ at large will walk in this kind of simplicity because they truly know how loved they are. The world will no longer hold any attraction to us, but rather we will attract them. They will know we are Christians by our love (John 13:35).

No one has ever walked this out in a greater way than God. Jesus gives us a great example of Father’s love setting us free in the story of the prodigal (Luke 15). Deut.21:20, 21 says that this rebellious son should have been stoned, and yet Jesus shares how the father in this story actually accommodates his request for his inheritance.

Some people may have heard of the Invisible Fence for dogs. It is an electrical wire buried just under the grass on the perimeters of your yard. The dog then has a sensor on his collar that gives him a shock if he crosses the wire. Now when we get saved, we are committing our lives to the Lordship of Christ. At that prayer, He could have put some kind of shock system on the inside of us so that whenever we would go to spread a little gossip, tell a lie, or even cheat on our diet, we would get a shock. The Body of Christ, I believe, would very quickly become obedient! But it would only be an outward conformity. God is after our hearts. He wants us to choose to obey Him out of love, not duty. He has gone to incredible lengths to have a people who would do this in a radical way!