“Striving”: modern word for living according to the law
When we talk about legalism or living under the law, we often think either of the Law of Old Covenant or commandments of Jesus but in a form where we make them religious performances.
However, living under the law, instead of grace, is to make anything else except Jesus and His finished work on the cross to be the one thing that I would believe to either save me, make me a righteous (to be in right standard in God’s eyes), spiritual, or a good person. It is to set any thing as a standard that I would need to attain in order to see myself as worthy or good enough.
"(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)”
Romans. 2:14-15 (NIV)
Our behavior reveals to us when we have made law for ourselves out of things we might not even realize could even become law for us. In my opinion the modern term for legalism is "striving" or "performance-orientated behavior". And, oh boy, how many things there are in the world to strive for!
I’ve noticed how we believers have made things to strive for at least from: knowledge, faith, positivity, charisma, conservativity, neutrality, poverty, suffering, success, authority, serving in the church, or the opinions and instructions of a particular person.
All these things which most of them are not wrong in themselves (just as the law of Moses was not), but the question is whether we make them the main factor either for our salvation, purity, or holiness by how well we perform in them. That is, implementing them with the principle: "The more I manage to be one of these, the more saved, purer, or holier I would be in the eyes of the Lord."
Instead of believing in Jesus and His finished work on the cross applying their reality to every life situation.
The effects to our inner person by living according to the law is like a double-edged sword. If we succeed or fail in accomplish any law we have set for ourselves, either case it will not bear Godly good fruit in us.
Succeed, it produces pride and a sense of superiority which makes us see ourselves superior to others. Fail, it generates shame, guilt, jealousy, anger, and judgment in us.
It also makes us compare ourselves to others, looking down on those who do not meet the standard we have set. Then again, people who fulfill our law better than we do, we either envy them or put on a pedestal by considering them better than ourselves, but in unhealthily way. Until they happen to break our law as flawed people, at which point we get deeply disappointed in them.
This is why we have Jesus and His finished work on the cross! Jesus came not only to make us free as a humanity from sin, and the Jews free from the law of Moses, but also from all the standards we have set for ourselves by which we judge our, and others, worth.
This may be a topic difficult to understand for someone who is learning to grow out of a performance-oriented mentality and lifestyle, to whom all this would sound like Christians no longer need to take care or be responsible for anything they do. Or as if the concepts of right and wrong had become meaningless.
Paul addressed both conclusions by saying:
"By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"
Romans. 6:2 (NIV)"Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.”
Romans. 3:31 (NIV)
Then Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Matthew. 5:17 (NIV)
So is law then gone because we are under the grace, or is it not? What on earth?
All laws in the world are based on the same principle by telling us what is right and wrong. By not abolishing the law, Jesus meant He didn’t come to erase the concepts of "right and wrong." Knowing the law (i.e., understanding the concepts of right and wrong) can never save, purify or make us holy, but all decent laws in the world are simply showing people how all have done something wrong and needs a Savior - Jesus - who can save, purify and make us holy.
Grace is not going to free us from responsibilities, quite the opposite! It empowers us to take responsibility for our actions. Nor does grace free us from the concepts of right and wrong, but empowers us to live right according to the will God.
It’s not that I’m doing the right thing in order to be righteous (to be in right standard in God’s eyes), but because through faith in Jesus God has already made me right in His eyes by His mercy and grace, so that all my right doings comes from the very awareness of this truth.
My lifestyle isn’t based on me trying to get in, but what am I gonna do now that I have already gotten in?
Stay free!