Bowing To Those Who Bite

I know the worst job you might have as a Christian.  It’s a full time job and the daily description changes but you can never keep up.  It’s a management gig, requires skills you will never have and promises you a huge paycheck but actually depletes your resources in the end.  You have to build your own office, polish your own desk, call your own meetings, celebrate your own milestones alone and you will walk to your car by yourself every day when your duties have ended.  You get back up and do it again the next day.  It’s a ridiculous job that God has promised never to bless yet there are scores of Christians who wait in line to take the position.  I’m talking about the person who assumes the employment of Inspector and takes on the duties of patrolling the Kingdom, looking for those who are not quite measuring up.

“Because of false brothers secretly brought in – who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery – to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” – Galatians 2:4-5 {ESV}

When you live to monitor the level of excellence in others you are actually decreasing the level of your own.  Nobody is called of God to spend their days here below checking and critiquing others in an effort to determine whether those people measure up.  While Christians are called to live in discernment, to validate spiritual fruit and to recognize the need for spiritual growth …. they are to place the primary emphasis on inspecting themselves, not others.  I have studied the book of Galatians in the last ten years more so than any other of the Bible’s books.  Galatians is the magnum opus of Paul’s statements against the sin of spiritual arrogance, judgmental intolerance and traditional foolishness.  His words above details the process of people slipping into assemblies who believe that their job is to keep an eye on others so as to ensure that nobody gets “too free” in the grace given by God through Jesus Christ.  Now mind you, these spiritual spies were moral, intelligent and upstanding men.  These men were sincere, motivated by a sense of virtue and truly believed that they were right and others were wrong.  They had some bible verses on their sides when they made their arguments and were skilled at their misuse and manipulation.  They also had historical traditions and religious scruples and church-precedent making 3-part harmony with them as they sang the songs of the enlightened.  Paul’s response to them?  He withstood them and refused to give them even the slightest foothold among those whom he served.  He would not be intimidated, he would not be an accessory to their sinful self-righteousness and he wisely protected the flock from their stifling influence.  The Holy Spirit details these men as seeking to “spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus”.  These types of people actually desire to remove from our hands what God Himself has joyfully placed there – biblical freedom.  Why would they wish to do this?  The Holy Spirit answers this also when He moves Paul to say that these invaders seek to “bring us into slavery”; they like control, power, position, influence and authority among others.  It is to assign, dictate, interpret and oversee others that they have appointed themselves.  Paul closes the statement above by saying that we are not to place ourselves under their unauthorized influence because, when we do so, the purity of the Gospel is undermined and something else begins to serve as our motivating fear and object of pleasure.  Legalists will often tell you to “just look to God” but you must do so with a tailor made set of blinders that they have customized just for you.

Refuse to be controlled by unbiblical people.  Remember, legalists have always appeared as some of the most spiritual to those whose eyes have not been trained to recognize them.  These people are never outwardly, publicly wicked.  They are VERY religious and that is what makes them VERY dangerous to the well-being of our souls.  If you are afraid to disappoint someone by walking  in biblical freedom, liberated joy and detachment from man-made presumptions then I welcome you to a prolonged study of the book of Galatians where you will find that God challenges us to remain loyal to him even while disappointing or angering others around us.  Legalism is nothing new nor are controlling personalities.  When you refuse them access to your life, they will leave you.  When you do not allow them any space to exercise their influence, they will seek somewhere else to do so and someone else less discerning than you to control.  Paul was so strongly convinced that withstanding legalists was part of his calling as a Christian that he actually chronicled in his writings how he fought them.  When a dog bites, you send it to the pound with the other devourers.  Don’t tolerate legalists in your life; don’t welcome them as harmless pets because they will eventually turn on you with teeth…or, worse yet, they will bite someone you love.  It is our call to resist this and my hope is that you and I will never lose courage to do so.