Living With A Law-Based Mentality In A Grace-Based Reality

To be truthful, the majority of believers are not living according to the Law of Moses.

They are not following the days, diets, duties, and demands of the law for righteousness or as a way of life.

However, many believers, myself for a part of my life, lived with a law-based mentality, even though God’s reality was grace.

I didn’t know I was living with a law based-mentality.

I knew we are saved by grace.

I had memorized Ephesians 2:8-9.

However, I did not know much about the grace that saved me.

I sang Amazing Grace, but I did not know why grace was so amazing.

I knew the acronym for grace:

God’s

Riches

At

Christ’s

Expense,

but I didn’t know the riches of grace.

I could define grace as God’s unmerited favor, but I didn’t know the favor that was unmerited.

What is so ironic was that I didn’t know that I didn’t know about grace.

I thought I was living in God’s grace.

But rather, I was living with a law-based mentality.

I wasn’t living according to the Law of Moses.

I wasn’t following the days, diets, duties, and demands of the law for righteousness.

However, I was living with a law-based mentality by trying to daily stay in fellowship and stay right with God, forgiven by God, and close to God by works...not the works of the Law of Moses, but works I had been taught by others.

I was living by the Law of ___________.

Fill in the blank.

Whatever someone told me to do, I did.

So whatever their law was, was the law I was living by.

If it was to get up an hour early to spend time with God, I did.

If it was to pray and witness more, I did.

If it was to serve more I did.

Whatever sermon I heard, I believed.

Whatever conference speaker I listened to, I believed.

Whoever discipled me, I believed.

Whatever small group or discipleship group I was in, I followed the curriculum.

Whatever verse I was taught to memorize, I did.

Whatever Christian book I read, I believed.

Until I read a book that was so radically different than any book I ever read.

In this book, I learned about grace.

The law.

The new covenant.

I learned about forgiveness being full, final, and forever.

I learned to rest rather than work.

I learned about our fellowship with God being eternal and continual based upon what Jesus had done, not based upon my ability to “keep short account on sins.”

I learned that to fall from grace was to fall into a religious and moral system to stay right with God rather than trusting in Jesus alone.

I learned the new testament begin with the death of Jesus not the birth of Jesus.

I learned that if anyone was in Christ, the old covenant of law is gone and the new covenant of grace had come.

I was a new creation because the Spirit of Jesus lived in me, writing the truths of the new covenant (testament) on my heart.

What was this book?

The Bible.

In the Bible, I discovered that much of what I had been taught by well-meaning people was wrong.

These people taught from the Bible but were not teaching the Bible.

What they taught me kept me living with a law-based mentality.

What the Bible taught me moved me to live in the reality of the grace.

So I had a choice to make.

Was I going to continue to live with a law-based mentality or would I, by faith, choose to live with a grace-based mentality?

My feelings told me to continue to live with a law-based mentality...

...continue to try and get from God what he gave me for free,

...continue to try to maintain what was eternal (forgiveness by and fellowship with God).

My emotions were aligned with what I was previously taught.

Yet I could not base my decision upon what I was feeling emotionally.

My decision had to be based upon what I was studying scripturally.

So by faith, in total contrast to how I felt, I made a decision (by the Spirit of Jesus and the grace of God in me) to live in the reality of grace.

By living in the reality of grace, my life was transformed!

Before living in the reality of grace, I was taught to live with a mentality of law.

I had no idea what I was missing out on.

I didn’t know I was not living in the fullness of God’s grace.

I didn’t know I was in bondage.

I didn’t know I was a slave to law-based thinking and living.

I am so thankful the Spirit of Jesus in me opened the eyes of my heart for me to see the reality of the new covenant of grace…

...the fullness and eternal work of Jesus,

and knowing God as Father - a continual, eternal relationship where I am free to be open and honest with him, without fear of rejection and not in shame or condemnation, about my weaknesses, struggles, fears, joys, hopes, dreams, etc…

The Spirit of the Lord has opened the eyes of the hearts of many to the reality of the new covenant of grace...the full, final, and forever work of Jesus on our behalf.

Yet there are many, some who may be reading this post, who are living with a law-based mentality.

You are not literally following the days, diets, duties, and demands of the Law of Moses.

But you are following the Law of ______________ (fill in the blank).

May I share with you the good news of grace.

Everything you are trying to earn from God, everything you are trying to maintain or obtain by works, he has freely, fully, and forever given to you in Jesus, and you simply receive it by faith and rest in it forever.

I pray the Spirit of Jesus in you gives you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so you may know the riches of God’s grace given to you in Jesus and so you may know the Father more deeply and closely (Ephesians 1:15-19).