Thesis 9: Legalism Is Not Holiness. Legalism Is Not Love.

This is Thesis 9 of the “End Times 95 Theses by The Two Witnesses of Revelation", a parallel of the work Martin Luther did hundreds of years ago. This thesis will expose legalism in modern ministries, specifically online ministries, and get readers back to love as the law. Here are the previous theses for reference, which I recommend reading in order:

This post is dedicated to Jake, for his efforts in operating in love.

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior." - Stephen Convoy

Let all that you do be done in love. - 1 Corinthians 16:14

Introduction - Love or the Law? (Scenario 1)

Last summer, I drove past some gorgeous sunflowers, and since I truly enjoy photography, I wanted to take some pictures. These were at a locally owned farmer’s market, in a small community. It was closed, but I thought it would be harmless to snap a quick picture at sunset and move along, even planning to give the business credit on social media.

As I was taking the pictures, a middle-aged woman emerged and said, “The business is closed now.” I said, “Oh, yes, I know. I just wanted a few quick pictures of the sunflowers. Is that okay?”

She said, “You need to call and ask them for permission, and then you can come back.”

I thought in my mind, “I won’t be able to return tomorrow.” I tried to ask if she could just let me have this one time, and I would call the business tomorrow and let them know I took the pictures (and ask for permission to post), but she wasn’t having it. I acquiesced and went home without any pictures (except for a few I snagged before she came out).

There are two perspectives here: one of the law and one of love. Technically, the woman was correct. I was on their property, and it was closed, and I was violating some rule they had in place. For all purposes of the law, the woman was correct.

From the perspective of love, the woman could have just let me take the pictures and it really would have not harmed anyone. In fact, it would have promoted the business in the community, as I have a way of reaching many people in real life.

It does not matter to readers if you agree with the woman or not. The presented scenario is not about who is “right” or “wrong” from a legalistic standpoint. Legally, she was right in her actions. Ultimately, I backed down, and I moved on with my day.

Though the woman operated in a legalistic sense, she did not necessarily operate out of love (at least for me). Maybe she was operating out of love for the business though. Let’s consider she was acting solely out of a legalistic sense and nothing more for the purpose of this post, however.

Yes, rules are needed, and they are important. This is the legalistic aspect of society that we do, in fact, need. I am not against rules or having them.

Still, she could have taken a risk and operated out of love. From her perspective, I may have been a criminal and this risk wasn’t worth it. Perhaps she didn’t know. The key word here is risk. Every time we operate out of love, there is a risk involved, and that will be discussed later in this post.

I am not here to demonize the woman, nor am I angry about the situation. From my perspective, though, I just wanted to take some pictures of some vibrant sunflowers, and I missed the opportunity. Small, I’m sure to some, but had the woman operated with a little more love, and less law, it would have meant a lot to me.

As Christians, we are presented with scenarios like this on a daily basis, and walking in love as a Christian can be confusing. Today, the modern church struggles with appropriate love and boundaries, while the online church struggles with legalism. Everywhere, Christians are met with extremes, and I am calling for the return of “The Narrow Path” to all churches: The narrow path of perfect love in Jesus Christ.

The Extremes - The Narrow Path

According to Matthew 7:13 -

7:13 Enter ye in 1525 5628 at 1223 the strait 4728 gate 4439: for 3754 wide 4116 [is] the gate 4439, and 2532 broad 2149 [is] the way 3598, that leadeth 520 5723 to 1519 destruction 684, and 2532 many 4183 there be 1526 5748 which 3588 go in 1525 5740 thereat 1223 846:(strait: or, narrow)
7:14 Because 3754 strait 4728 [is] the gate 4439, and 2532 narrow 2346 5772 [is] the way 3598, which 3588 leadeth 520 5723 unto 1519 life 2222, and 2532 few 3641 there be 1526 5748 that find 2147 5723 it 846.(Because: or, How)

When looking at the modern day church, it can be grouped into two categories in these end times:

Real life churches
Online ministries

When examining most real life churches, the over-abundance of “grace” has reigned. One key criticism most readers can agree on is that churches have lost their way in calling out sin and allowing just about everything. This is clear in many churches promoting political ideologies, such as "transgender" churches. These churches are clearly in the category of following the “broad” path, and they have gone away from the narrow path as outlined by Jesus Christ. This sort of "lazy", complacent church is discussed more in Thesis 5.

Since this topic has been exposed in many ways today, I do not want to "beat a dead horse", so to speak. Rather, I want to expose an area that has not yet been exposed: the rising legalism in online ministries.

Again, what has not been examined today or critiqued as much is the rise of online ministries. We are, indeed, an online ministry, and in a moment I will show why I believe we are following the narrow path. Before I do, I wanted to discuss the rise of legalism in the online church.

Many are leaving the churches and they have chosen to follow online ministries. While there is nothing wrong with that, I caution readers to examine the ministries they are following online and whether or not they are following the narrow path.

One thing I noticed is that these ministries usually have a “sage on stage” with a one-way communication style, little feedback allowed, and sometimes no way to contact them. Now, I do understand the need to shut down contact at times because of the outpouring of hatred that occurs online, and I’m not saying our ministry would never feel the need to do that. Still, the point is that I often see these legalistic ministries block comments, and more than that, they stand alone, without fellowship.

The Bible explains the importance of fellowship and leadership in any ministry. A ministry without true fellowship is dangerous. Many of these online ministries have NO fellowship, and therefore, they are not able to get feedback from others. Further, not everyone is called to be a leader, yet, many have put themselves on a pedestal, in “vain conceit” to gain followers and attention.

To note, I am not saying I do not understand the challenges of online ministries; however, they can be conquered. Not only do Witness 1 and I have leadership councils for our online and real life ministries, we also have open contact and include diverse perspectives on our pages. We are always allowing reader input, and while we do not always agree with it all, I would say our ministry is diverse in this way. We allow and even encourage people to email us, even those who disagree. However, we do request respectful communications. Many can note that I spend a lot of time on the phone speaking with people, listening to them, and praying for them.

Going back to most online ministries, because of the lack of proper leadership and fellowship, one begins to see a rise in self-righteousness, narcissism, and legalism. When a person is able to speak to a large following of people without the counsel of others, it becomes dangerous. Often, these people post a video, self-isolate, and they often lose the love and the law gains power. Sometimes they become lunatics, misleading many people down a dark path.

This is where you start to see videos about legality - women must wear head coverings at all times, and they cannot wear makeup or they will go to hell. Then, you start getting a strange resurgence of old law practices - one must obey the Sabbath laws and one must participate in the festivals of the Old Testament. Since Witness 1 has already written on why we no longer follow the Old Law, I will link it here for readers. The point is that many of these legalistic ministries tell us we need to follow the Old Law, despite Paul telling the "foolish Galatians" this is not true!

These online ministries are incredibly dangerous because when people fall into the trap of legalism, they lose the love of Jesus Christ. There can be no true love in legalism. In this next section, I would like to explain to readers how to operate in love first because love is the law.

How Do We Operate in Christ's Love?

In the false churches, the love of God has been misconstrued. In one church, God’s love is without boundaries. There is nothing that can make Him angry - he accepts all. It is love with only grace and mercy and no discipline. On the other end, in the legalistic church, God is always looking for someone to do something wrong. He is easy to anger, and He is never pleased.

Both of these views are incorrect, and we must go back to Scripture to truly understand the character of God.

Love is the Law (Scenario 2)

To open with this next section, I wanted to give a personal example of when I fell into legalism. At the time, there was a woman in my ministry who became my friend. As a woman, I have always tried to work on my relationship with vanity, and she offered me some legalistic perspectives on make-up and beauty. When talking to her, I began to feel guilty for certain things, such as wearing high heels. I slowly began to throw out some of my beauty products and was kind of “testing the waters.”

I want to be very clear here. I do not think women should idolize beauty; however, I do not think all forms of beauty are evil. This is where legalism comes in.

One day, I was wearing my favorite bracelet on the way to work. This was a lovely, silver bracelet with an azul stone. This woman was beginning to make me somewhat obsessed with throwing away items because she believed many of them could be “evil.” I threw this lovely bracelet in the dumpster, thinking it would get rid of something evil in my life.

Now, again, there is a time and place to throw out evil objects, but really, this bracelet was fine. I was getting into a legalistic mindset where I felt I had to be plain, where I had to take away any items of beauty.

To this day, I regret throwing out this bracelet because I will never find one like it again and reminded me of my deceased mother. However, it taught me a lesson - do not let a legalistic mindset overpower you.

Again, there is a time and place to throw out objects, but this was not one of them. I became caught up in legalism, and I regret throwing that sentimental bracelet away.

So, then, how exactly do we know how to operate in love? What do we do? How do we know we are operating on the narrow path?

It is difficult, so let me go back to something I have written when we first started this blog called "What is the Square Root of 25"?

I had a dream last night that I was in a classroom. I was sitting in a tiny hallway, and I felt claustrophobic. I decided to move toward the end of the hallway so I could be more open and free.

I was taking a test. I was sitting next to some other students, and they were talking. One asked the teacher, “I have a question! Why is this world so crappy? Why is the economy about to collapse?” I replied, “It’s the end of the world!” Another more charismatic student started talking about something else, and everyone ignored my comment. I was a little annoyed that I still had to take the test even though it all felt useless.

The test question was, “What is the square root of 25?” I was thinking about it, struggling a little, and then I woke up.

When I woke up I prayed to God and he told me to go to the Greek’s strong concordance (I asked him specifically whether to use Hebrew or Greek), and to look up the meaning of the numbers. Here is what I found:

Strong's Concordance (25)

agapaó: to love

Original Word: ἀγαπάω

Part of Speech: Verb

Transliteration: agapaó

Phonetic Spelling: (ag-ap-ah'-o)

Definition: to love

Usage: I love, wish well to, take pleasure in, long for; denotes the love of reason, esteem

Abba: Abba, father (5 - square root of 25)

Original Word: Ἀββᾶ

Part of Speech: Proper Noun, Indeclinable

Transliteration: Abba

Phonetic Spelling: (ab-bah')

Definition: Abba, father

Usage: Abba, Father.

So, the message to me in the dream was: the root of loving others is loving our Father first. Wow! Perfect square = perfect love.

Despite the world ending and me feeling frustrated, in order to pass the test, I need to first love the Father, and through that love, I need to continue to love others. To note, I’ve been praying about my difficulty loving others at times, and I believe God was responding specifically to this prayer.

We cannot truly love anyone until we love the Father first. Do you see why the world struggles with this concept of love? They don’t have the love of the Father in their hearts, and therefore, their love is incomplete.

However, for perfect love, we must first love our Father (abba) and then we can love others more perfectly. As Jesus said in one of my favorite verses:

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

In other words, God was reminding me, and perhaps all of you reading (because He knew I’d write it out) of the Law of the Prophets.

I was also reminded of the verse 1 John 4: 8:

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.\

As we get lost in this world of confusing doctrines, we need to go back to our love of the Father first. Do we love God? Do we show Him our love? Do we seek Him FIRST?

I believe if we do that first, the rest comes. We show our love of God by loving others as ourselves (our actions).

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone reading. I will continue to post my dreams as long as I feel they will help someone out there.

Yes, it is the end of the world, but we still have a mission to love God and love others daily.

In order to understand God's love, we must first love Him with all of our hearts. If we do not love Him fully, we will have difficulty loving others. If we do not love God, we cannot love others properly or operate in love properly. That is why loving God is the first step.

In order to love God fully, we need to obey Him and not have any other idols in our lives. Pray to Jesus, "Lord, please help me obey you and remove all idols in my life in Jesus's name." That's a simple prayer, but trust me, it is powerful.

Once you start fully loving God, you are then commanded to love others. Remember, there is no list of Dos and Don'ts in the New Testament. We have freedom in the Law. Paul says,

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

However, with this freedom comes great responsibility, and even risk, which I will come back to in a moment.

So, God calls us to first love Him and then love others as ourselves. That is the law! That is the law in totality. That is Jesus Christ summarized! It's so simple a child could understand, but humans, especially adults, tend to complicate things.

Most people struggle with the loving other parts, but that is often rooted in the fact that they are not loving God fully. Again, you have to love Jesus Christ first.

Still, if you love Him and are still struggling with others, I recommend to review the quote I posted at the beginning of this post:

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior." - Stephen Convoy

When we do anything, we want people to judge us by our intentions. However, we jump to judging people by their actions. What if you started to judge people by what they intended first?

So, for example, let's say someone offended you with their words. At first, you may get angry, but then you remember Jesus. He tells you, "Examine their intentions."

You realize they may have been tired, or simply said something in a way they didn't mean. Once you take someone's intentions into account, then forgiveness comes into play, and we must constantly be forgiving others to act in the love of Jesus Christ.

Of course, we can never fully assume anybody's intentions perfectly, but we can ask the Holy Spirit to aid us in examining intentions. "Dear Lord Jesus Christ, did this person really mean to hurt me with those words, or did they make a mistake?"

The Holy Spirit can lead you in how to examine the actions and how to forgive.

One way we can act in a more loving way is to treat others the way we want to be treated. When I talk to people, I want them to assume the best of intentions of me, so therefore, I will try to give people the benefit of the doubt, as well. This is treating others the way we want to be treated.

Of course, we are not to be foolish, and in a coming thesis I will write about how to rebuke and when to draw the line. Still, when we operate in love, we should try to assume that people mean well.

Do they always? No. They do not. Still, that is when the next step calls us to forgive them.

Is living like this easy? No! Loving people is the most arduous task one can set out to do. However, when you love God with all your heart and others as yourself by following Jesus Christ, you fulfill the law.

You don't need a thousand rules because that is the law. When you start living this way, with everything you do out of the true love of Jesus Christ, then rules are not really needed anymore.

In fact, you realize that every moment is a decision to act in love, which comes at great risk.

The Risk of Love

When you love others as yourself, you take a big risk. You might even get hurt by others. It isn't easy. This is sacrificial love that Jesus speaks of - that you could even lose your life for a friend.

When we truly love, we end up sacrificing. We end up doing things we don't even want to do for His love. We end up getting mocked or persecuted for love. We end up risking our own lives for the true love of Jesus Christ.

To give an example, working through this ministry, I risk getting hurt, and sometimes I do get hurt. I remember one time that really hurt me is that I spent two hours on the phone with a guy, only for him to write me a cruel email me a few days later with many evil words.

It really, really hurt me. It honestly broke my heart a little. We had such a nice phone call, and I really thought it was loving, but he turned against me.

I do forgive him, but I use this as an example of the risks I have taken for love, and I am sure many readers have, too. Some, however, do not love because they are afraid to get hurt or take this risk.

When you truly love others, it is likely you will get hurt one way or another. That is why we have to forgive quickly. When we forgive, it heals us immediately.

So, we don't need 1,000 rules in a legalistic ministry. However, we do need the rule of love of Jesus Christ, and when we are unsure if we operating in love, we need to ask ourselves:

"Is this how I would want to be treated? Is this what Jesus would do?"

Does anyone remember the WWJD movement from the 90s? I was joking with Witness 1 we should revitalize that movement and sell the wristbands on this page. Would anyone buy them? Haha - let us know!

Getting back to the point, when in doubt, go back to this question, "What would Jesus do?", and find your answers in Scripture.

Remember, this is not to say there is not a time or place for harsh words or rebuke, but love should be at the heart of every single action you take.

When you start operating in the love of Jesus Christ, from the moment you wake up, you will realize your day changes, and you start asking yourself questions or thinking things like this:

"I really don't want to make the effort to return this lost ID, but it may make someone's day.
"Maria is having a bad day. Maybe I can save her some dessert."
"Should I really send this email? Is this with words of love?

These are just examples, and I won't overdo it. Jesus Christ told me to keep this post simple because it is simple, but I want to end on a final note, where it gets a little more complicated.

Legalism is Not Holiness. Legalism is Not Love.

Many ministries, especially online ones, have become legalistic because they think that equates with holiness. They are completely missing the point! Legalism is NOT holiness. Holiness comes by not sinning and operating in the perfect love of Jesus Christ, which sometimes breaks the rules. Let's go to the classic Matthew 12:

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[a] you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

The Pharisees thought they were holy because of the rules! Jesus Christ shows true holiness sometimes requires breaking the rules and operating in perfect love.

When we operate with perfect love, the rules of men may not make sense.

This is not permission to become lawless. Again, we have rules for a reason. However, have you ever broken a rule for love? I surely have. Surely, you have, too!

Holiness does not come from following rules. It comes from following love.

So, when you see these ministries talking about how holy they are because they still follow the Sabbath and do not eat pork, they are completely missing the point of Jesus Christ. In fact, anyone who is following the Old Law or participating in self-righteous rules has completely missed the mark of Jesus Christ.

Recently, Witness 1 and I completed a fast. The fast ended at 5:30, but we were supposed to eat dinner with some friends and family. They were ready to eat at 5:15. Should we have been rude and unloving and tell them to eat at 5:30 because we were fasting? Or should we have operated in love and ate at 5:15 because they were probably hungry?

We ate at 5:15, and we know God understood. He's not a legalist and neither are we. Of course, we prayed about it first.

Ultimately, in order to walk the narrow path, one must operate in perfect love. The problem with the modern church is that, on one end, they have tried to have love without discipline. That is impossible with Jesus Christ. There is no truth without discipline. On the other end of the spectrum, they have taken discipline too far and stopped operating in love. That becomes legalism and is just as dangerous.

It is then that we must find the perfect, narrow path of love - the path that is difficult to find. Remember, Satan is always looking to corrupt this path, to confuse the perceptions of love - to make us tolerate things we should not, and that is why we see the rise of strange movements in the church.

Love is not tolerance, and love is not legalism. Love is Jesus Christ, and when you follow Jesus Christ and obey Him, you will be operating in perfect love.

There is no list of rules because the law is love, and we should be in accordance with it every moment. This does not mean we can do whatever we want - far from it.

Rather, it is the truth that the hardest path to follow of all is the of true, perfect love through Jesus Christ. Very few find it, but you can start now.

Here is the "MSG" version of the classic verse, just for fun. The legalists would tell you I can only use the KJV version or something. But those legalists just don't understand, do they?