Freely Receiving from the Spirit and Walking Free of Legalism

Listening today to Mike Bickle teaching about Freely Receiving from the Spirit and Walking Free of Legalism. We hear that term a lot - and I thought I knew what that meant, but today I'm getting a new perspective on that. A simple definition of legalism is: engaging in spiritual activities to earn God's favor. Praying, fasting, giving, serving, outreach, bible study - we can engage in legitimate, necessary spiritual activities, but when we do them based on favor we seek from God, we are practicing legalism.

Ask any Christian and they'll tell you they know they can't earn their salvation, that it's a free gift from God. But our natural mindset automatically kicks into the gear of wanting to earn God's favor and God's blessing. Even though we know better, we all naturally do this. Verbally we acknowledge God's grace is free; but at the emotional level, we don't really buy into it.

One of the main reasons we struggle with this is because there's no natural occurrence of this in the earth. Isaiah 55:7-8 says "God's ways are higher than man's ways, as high as the heavens are above the earth; God's ways are as superior to and different from man's ways as the heavens are from the earth." He's actually talking about His tenderness towards our brokenness - the way that God offers mercy is so superior to any human beings' ability to show mercy - there's nothing on earth to compare it to. It takes the revelation of grace to understand. This comes down to us trapping (or trying to) God's love into the same box ours is contained in; changing to definition of God's love to mean what man calls love.

God's righteousness, blessing, and favor are given freely to those who have faith or confidence in Jesus' work on the cross and in His deep love for His people. (2 Cor. 5:17-21) says anyone in Christ is a new creation... that Jesus became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. God releases His power by faith - faith is having confidence in our agreement with the Spirit and the Word of God. That means we operate in our faith from the standpoint that Jesus paid for every sin, and that we stand spotless before God as Christ does. That means we operate in the confidence that when we repent of sin, it is gone and forgotten; that we cast off our natural spirit of shame after we repent and set ourselves before God with confidence that we are blameless.

Many find it easy to believe that their initial salvation is a free gift; but then believe that God listens to them, desires them, and uses them based on how well they are performing in their spiritual life. "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law [earning it], or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh [earning it]?...He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Gal. 3:2-5) 


There are 2 different expressions of pride that tempt God's people; the pride that seeks to gain man's praise and the pride that seeks to earn God's favor. Many of the activities related to serving God are the same - the legalistic man will pray, fast, tithe, make time commitments to God just as the man empowered by grace does. It's not the activity but the motivation behind the activity that determines legalism.

Well, why is that such an issue? Both are serving, both love God. Because if we serve from a desire to earn God's favor or from a fear of God rejecting us, we are actually trusting more in our commitment to God than in God's commitment to us. God's love and desire for us existed before we acknowledged Him; God thought of us long before we thought of Him. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). God's desire for us doesn't change based on what we do and don't do as believers; God's desire is for us to "take and say thank you" for all that He gives us. (Ps. 116:12-17).

When we operate in our faith with a legalistic mindset, our eyes are on ourselves (and how well we're performing) instead of on Jesus, and our motivation is based on doing enough to earn God's favor instead of simply receiving it freely and thanking God for it. And focusing on ourselves as the source leaves us preoccupied in measuring our dedication, our calling, and our relationship with the Spirit and comparing it with others. But when we operate in our faith with a supernatural revelation of God's grace, we are confident that in every season of our walk, God is paying attention, desires us and is waiting to release blessing on us. Even when we fail, God will still answer our prayers and still wants to use us; He still wants us to talk to Him with extravagant language of love. We can't pray and fast and tithe our way into God's love; but those activities increase our capacity to RECEIVE the love He already has for us.

We can have seasons where we faithfully keep all our commitments to God and then slip into seasons where we fall short - but God's reaction to us is still the same, it doesn't change. We are still the righteousness of God through Jesus; we are still set before God as spotless as the Lamb of God!!! But our connection to Him is based on US. We can fail - and either fall into our shame, put ourselves in a kind of spiritual detention, and change how we relate to God because of that - OR - we can fail - have legitimate shame; repent of our weakness and walk away from that for good and set our hearts back to God in wholeheartedness, talking with Him in confidence in His love. But if we are proud when we do good and feel shame and depression when we do bad, we are operating in our own confidence in OUR commitment to God, not His commitment to us.

How are you emotionally responding to God in your walk? Is your faith based on your ability to stick to your commitments to God or based on freely receiving and accepting with thanksgiving God's commitment to you? The righteousness you received as a free gift on your bank account in Heaven, the day you were born again, can never ever be improved upon. A million years from now, you will never have more righteousness in God's eyes than you did the moment you were born again. It's the righteousness of Christ; it can't be improved upon. You didn't receive a 10% part; you received all 100% the first moment. All the hinderance from God's standpoint is gone; His heart is wide-open, there's nothing stopping Him from expressing His love for you - the only thing stopping you is your ability to receive it. Christ's desire is to guide us to maturity in our love for God. Focusing our thoughts, our feelings, our desires on Christ and not on our own morbid introspection will free us from our own emotional traffic and clear the way for God to communicate to us.

Paralysis by analysis grips us when we are focused on comparing our walk, our blessings, our gifting with others. We are engaged in a continuous conversation with ourselves; "why is this person receiving more than me, are my motives right, is the Holy Spirit really touching me, my ministry is as good as theirs, he seems more dedicated than me" - the Lord says, "ok I want you to hang the phone up on that conversation with yourself, I can't get a word in edgewise". "OK, Lord, hold on while I talk to me about me, just give me a minute, I'll be finished." We're trying to sort it all out. The Lord says - just talk to me. I'll tell you where you are at, why you're receiving what you're receiving, what my plan is for you, why your blessings look different than my blessings to someone else. Stop talking to yourself and talk to me; stop taking personal inventory of how many times you fail. When you fall short, repent, push delete and talk to Jesus.