Hi Phil,

I really like that a lot.

I'm keeping this.

I'm going to fill this loving Netbook up with good things like this.

Thanks much.

Lovingly,

Pat Ferguson



At 06:20 PM 2/26/2009, you wrote:
>I don't believe I posted this recently but if so, it might be worth reading
>again since I have done some editing to it.  Otherwise, just skip it.  The
>topic, on the other hand, has a lot to do with what I will eventually get
>around to posting concerning the program I listened to called, Hope In The
>Night, which is a counseling ministry run by June Hunt.
>
>Rules Of Engagement
>
>The Opposite Of Legalism
>
>
>By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>      I was listening to a Christian program that I have
>personally heard, and appreciated, for literally decades.  The
>guess speaker that day was one I had heard in previous broadcasts.
>He calls himself a preacher but I have heard others refer to him
>as a motivational speaker.  He appears to be both, that is, he
>teaches and makes Biblical principles applicable, by story telling
>and illustrative examples.  That sounds like a preacher to me but
>in all fairness, his goal very likely is motivational but not just
>for the sake of making his listeners feel good.  He truly brings
>home the importance of having a personal relationship with Christ.
>
>      Later it was explained he also holds public speaking
>training seminars around the country at various times for people
>to attend and thus to become better public speakers.
>
>      As I sat and listened to the first part of this two part
>presentation, I felt spiritually uncomfortable for some reason.
>I didn't feel he was wrong, necessarily, nor did he in any way
>marginalize the Bible or Biblical precepts, as far as I could
>tell, but something felt wrong.  I focused more closely on his
>method of public speaking, the stories he told, the humor he
>incorporated in order to illustrate a point, and I found nothing
>out of place.  In fact, his speaking technique was flawless.
>Still, I felt something was wrong but could not put my finger on
>it.  The feeling I had was spiritual in nature.
>
>      The next day, the second part was broadcast so I took time to
>listen.  It was in the second presentation I recognized what I had
>been feeling earlier.  It had to do with the implication of
>Christian legalism or what some now call performance based
>Christianity.
>
>      In one of his stories, he told about how he had learn to fly
>a small airplane.  As he flew along one day, he entered small
>puffy clouds to see what it would be like.  After experimenting a
>few times, by entering and exiting various small clouds, he found
>a larger cloud and entered it.  Later, when he popped out of the
>cloud, he was flying completely upside down.  This frightened him
>a great deal, of course, and upon landing, he signed up
>immediately for instrument flying.  He commented on there being a
>large number of thick books filled with rule after rule after rule
>and he memorized them all in order to pass his instrument exam.
>Now, he said, he doesn't get lost in clouds because he flies by
>what the instruments tell him.  He compared this to how we get the
>most joy out of living for Christ.  It was at that point I turned
>my radio off.
>
>      Sitting in the silence of my room, I reviewed everything the
>man had said.  Frankly, I really had no major disagreement with
>anything he had been teaching until he came to the comparison of
>living for Christ by rule.  I turned the radio off because I had
>already lived 50 years of my life by legalism, rules and
>regulation, and performance based Christian methodology.  Now I
>knew from personal experience, such did not work and wasn't even a
>Biblical concept or principle.  It is, unfortunately, still widely
>taught and accepted as Bible based.  His implication, or
>application, seemed to be that all the rules had to be kept or;
>what?  No joy?  At least that was what I got out of his teaching.
>
>      A basic definition of legalism is living by a set of Biblical
>rules.  Some weaken this statement by considering the Christian
>life to be a set of "Christian rules" lived by.  I trust you are
>noticing the words I am using.  If not, you'll miss the
>progressive downward drift.  Another lower level of definition
>might be a set of "religious rules."  Still others may reduce it
>to just a "set of rules," or "moral rules," but most often you
>will hear them called "The Golden Rules."  I've even heard some
>call them "cosmic rules," or, "universal rules."  Regardless,  the
>key word is "rules."  In our case as born again Christians, I am
>staying with the first definition because unless you are born
>again, it makes absolutely no difference what rules you live by;
>you won't be going to Heaven because you lived by any set of rules
>even if you think they are godly in nature.  Notice, I used a
>small letter "g" there and not a capital "G" to illustrate.
>
>      Concerning born again Believers specifically, and
>Christianity in general, we often think of Old Testament law when
>thinking about legalism.  These rules were required.  Yet no one
>was ever able to keep the letter of the law so a sacrifice was
>offered once a year for all the sins of the nation collectively.
>According to Chapter 7 and 8 of the book of Hebrews, Jesus
>fulfilled all Old Testament law by becoming the supreme sacrifice
>for sin.
>
>      Growing up as a independent Baptist, we considered liberal
>churches to be those types of ministries that kept few Christian
>standards.  For example, in my own life, I was not allowed to play
>with neighborhood friends on Sundays.  I could not ride my bike on
>Sunday.  We never went out to eat on Sundays.  My sisters didn't
>wear shorts.  As a young assistant youth pastor in the mid
>seventies, my wife didn't wear shorts or slacks but only skirts
>and dresses.  We didn't own a television for a period of time.  In
>fact, my whole life was made up by two lists of things I did, and
>didn't do, for the Lord.  The good list was long but the negative
>list was just about as long.  I didn't smoke, go to movies, drink,
>cuss or swear, and I could continue until a book was written on
>this topic.  The question is, did I do anything wrong by living
>this way?  No.  Nothing I was doing was wrong, on the surface, and
>in many respects, was beneficial to me personally as far as self
>discipline was concerned.  It had nothing to do, on the other
>hand, with my relationship with God.
>
>      I was listening to one of my favorite radio preachers
>recently when he used an illustration that disturbed me.  He was
>actually speaking on the topic of having a close personal
>relationship with the Lord.  He wanted to prove that his listening
>audience did not, in fact, have such a relationship.  This was, by
>the way, a taped message before a live audience but I heard the
>tape over his daily radio program.
>
>      As he taught, he asked how many people listening to him had
>ever been in a service, church meeting, where someone gave a
>spectacular testimony.  He suggested, that the testimony was
>something highly unusual such as a person encountering an angel or
>something like that.  Then he stated that most people hearing such
>a miraculous testimony, will sit in their seat and rather than
>rejoicing with the person, will think to themselves, "Well, God
>never does anything like that for me."  He declared this was pure
>and simple selfishness and self centeredness.
>
>      After the program was over, I sat and reviewed in my mind all
>he had said and wondered why I felt uncomfortable about what he
>said about selfishness.  It didn't take long for the Holy Spirit
>to reveal the truth to me.  The Bible teacher, unfortunately, may
>have been right but only under some circumstances.  Most people
>that I personally know, are envious of such deep and personal
>spiritual encounters because they desire to know God that
>intimately.  This man, by the way, preaches dogmatically against
>legalism but in this case, as well as at least one other example
>he has used, is nothing but legalism in its rawest of forms.  Why
>are we so afraid to live with Jesus as the only rule to live by?
>Why do we have to perform to make God happy?  Why do we have to
>have a Sunday school pin that is as long as a football field that
>we ostentatiously have to wear to church every Sunday to make sure
>people know just how faithful we have been?  Have you ever
>wondered why tithing is preached so imperiously?  I have heard it
>preached more than once that if you don't attend every service,
>including Sunday night services and midweek services, you are
>casting your vote that the church close its doors on those nights.
>Yeh, and a chicken has lips, too.  I have even heard it preached
>that if you work on Sundays, you are living outside the will of
>God.  I was in a church once that when weddings were conducted, if
>you had been involved with premarital sex, you could not be
>married in a white wedding gown, if you were the woman of course,
>and you could not be married, in this church, in the main
>auditorium.  Please show me this in the Bible.  Why do we have to
>read the Bible once every year, or twice or three times, to be
>spiritual?  I've read the Bible 114 times in my life, and once I
>read it twice in one month from cover to cover, and guess what?  I
>ain't one bit more spiritual than you are.  In fact, I know many
>people that are so far superior to me spiritually, I look like a
>spiritual midget in comparison.  I know Jesus though, and we are
>friends and he is my brother and He loves me like his own son.
>Come to think of it, I am, that is, one of His own sons.  So why,
>please tell me, do we have to become Christian circus animals,
>performing before others, in order to be loved and accepted by
>God?  That's right.  We don't.  How do I know this?  Well, the
>thief on the cross wasn't Baptized.  He never graduated from
>seminary.  He never read the Bible,  He wasn't even the member of
>a church.  Yet, Jesus said today, right now, he was going to join
>Him in paradise.  Go figure.  The thief on the cross didn't even
>have time to practice his Christianity but we are going to see him
>in Heaven.
>
>      May I ask where you are in God today?  Are you a performer?
>Are you an achiever?  Are you perhaps a spiritual goal setter?
>"Oh, no, Brother Scovell.  I do all these things because I want
>to.  I like pleasing god."  Me, too.  May I respectfully submit
>that God isn't impressed with anything you can do even if you are
>a Christian?  He doesn't collect Sunday school attendance records.
>He doesn't print bibles to sell to the Christian public.  He
>doesn't market Christian preaching tapes of His sermons for tax
>deductible gifts of 6 dollars a piece.  He doesn't sell crosses
>you can wear around your neck as necklaces.  Quite simply, He
>loves you just as you are.  No, He doesn't appreciate sinful
>living nor does He bless sinful behavior.  However, you haven't
>committed the unpardonable sin just because you didn't read your
>Bible and pray for 15 minutes this morning.  He hasn't stopped
>loving you because you didn't take communion last Sunday.  His
>standards, my friend, are far above anything I have mentioned.
>No, you cannot, nor will you ever, be able to obtain His
>standards.  We can, on the other hand, obtain Him personally
>because He has fulfilled all that for us and thus, when we come to
>Him, we come to Him on His terms.  His terms are, "Come as you
>are."  Did you ever stop and think that God doesn't look at you
>with clothes on?  You are naked before Him and He isn't ashamed of
>you either.  He is waiting for you to stop being ashamed and
>accepted for who, and what, you are in His sight and not yours.
>As long as you see yourself as you are, you won't see yourself as
>Jesus does.  In short, the opposite of legalism is Lordship.
>Seeing yourself as Jesus does is Lordship.  So what do you see?
>If you se anything less than what Jesus sees, you are denying the
>fullness of the Gospel message and you are believing lies about
>yourself.  It is time to stop lie based thinking so you can stop
>performance based spirituality.
>
>How Big Is God?  The Size Of Your Mouth.
>WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com