When God Says Do or Don’t

Now you say, “Well, what if we find a list of dos and don’ts in Scripture?” That is a very different issue! Any specified list in Scripture is to be obeyed without hesitation or question. That’s an inspired list for all of us to follow, not someone’s personal list. Let me encourage you to guide your life by any and all Scripture with all of your heart, regardless of how anyone else may respond.

Free to Eat, or Not

A funny thing happened to me recently. One of the sound-and-light people at the church where I pastor (a real character!) heard me teach on the subject of freedom. A couple of weeks later he pulled a gag on me. With an impish grin he said, “You had a birthday recently, didn’t you?” I nodded yes. He said, “You’re originally from Texas, right?” By now I knew I was in for something!

Grace and Freedom

With all this talk about grace and liberty, perhaps it’s time for me to clarify something. Some may be asking: Doesn’t liberty have its limits? Shouldn’t folks restrain their freedom and occasionally hold themselves in check? Yes, without question. Grace can be and sometimes is—abused.

Claiming Our Freedom from Sin’s Control

Know—”Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; . . . knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him” (vv. 3, 6, 9).

Four Antilegalistic Strategies

Grace killers cannot be mildly ignored or kindly tolerated. You can no more allow legalism to continue than you could permit a rattlesnake to slip into your house and hide. Before long, somebody is going to get hurt. So then, since liberty is worth fighting for, how do we do it? Where can our personal grace awakening begin?

Defining Legalism

In contrast to yesterday’s thoughts on liberty, what does it mean to say that legalism puts people under bondage? Legalism is an attitude, a mentality based on pride. It is an obsessive conformity to an artificial standard for the purpose of exalting oneself. A legalist assumes the place of authority and pushes it to unwarranted extremes.

Defining Liberty, Part Two

Without becoming needlessly academic, I want to define a term that I’ve been tossing around. What do I mean when I declare that the Christian has liberty? Essentially, liberty is freedom . . . freedom from something and freedom to do something. Today I will concentrate on what liberty gives us the freedom to do.

Defining Liberty, Part One

Undeserving, Yet Unconditionally Loved

Whatever he became, according to his own statement, Paul owed it all to “the grace of God.” When I ponder the words from that grand apostle, I come up with what we might call his credo. We can reduce it to three single-syllable statements, the first consisting of only eight words; the second, ten words; and the third, twelve.

Practical Suggestions for Guarding Against Extremes

Try your best to keep balanced, then enjoy it. No reason to feel guilty. No reason to be afraid. Try this first: Simply give yourself permission to be free. Don’t go crazy . . . but neither should you spend time looking over your shoulder worrying about those who “spy out your liberty,” and wondering what they will think and say.