Legalism revolves around trying to please or impress others by following man-made rules rather than God’s principles. It centers around strict conformity to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, which is to follow God. It is contrary to the dynamic of grace. It is opposite of everything that Jesus was and said.

Experience God’s Grace

Grace is so often misunderstood, and so often missed. Grace is something that should be found in churches, yet oddly enough, has seemed to disappear from the very place it should be lived out.
“Charis” is the Greek verb for the word we get grace, which means, “I rejoice, I am glad.” For many that is not the picture they have in their mind when they think of the church.

There are many, many definitions of grace. Grace is like a multi-faceted diamond. It has many different sides and shapes. No one definition could adequately describe it. Let me read a couple of definitions, though.

•        Grace is God’s love in action.
•        Grace is when God gives me what I need, not what I deserve.
•        Grace is anything that I desperately need that I don’t deserve, that I could never repay but God gives it to me anyway.
•        Grace is the face that God puts on when He looks at my failures, my faults, and my mistakes.

Many people confuse grace with mercy and they’re two different things. Mercy is when God doesn’t give you what you deserve. That’s mercy! Have you ever done anything wrong and gotten away with it? Yes. You’ve gotten off scott-free on a lot of things that you deserve justice for, that you deserve punishment for. When God doesn’t give you what you deserve that’s called mercy.

I don’t know how to say it any clearer than this. There is nothing that you will ever do, that you could ever possibly do that will make God love you more than He does right now. You can’t make God love you more. He already does. And there is nothing you could ever do that will ever make God love you any less than He does right now. Why? Because His love is not based on your performance. It’s based on His promise of grace. Not on your merit but on His mercy. Not on your goodness but on His grace.

If you ever grasp this, it will change your life. You will not be running from God all the time worrying about what He thinks. Instead you’ll run to Him every time you fall. You don’t run to somebody who wants to scold you. You run to somebody who wants to hug you and help you and change you. If you ever get it, it will change your life.

The Bible says in Isaiah 30:18 “The Lord longs to be gracious to you.” He’s waiting for you to accept His gift. He enjoys being gracious. He is not mad at you. He’s not sitting there ready to scold you. He’s saying, “Come home!” Some of you have held off because you’re afraid of being rejected. Maybe you were rejected by your parents. Maybe you were rejected by a boyfriend or a girlfriend and that hurt really bad. Or by a brother or sister or by kids on the playground. Some of you have been rejected by a former husband or wife who walked out on you and said very hurtful things that you can still think of today.

But there is one person who will never reject you and His name is Jesus Christ. He’s saying, “Come home.” You’ve been secretly overwhelmed by that shame in your life. You can get rid of it today. You can walk out of here with a clear conscious. The more you understand the grace of God, the more you fall in love with God, the more you want to draw closer to Jesus. Because it’s almost impossible to not love somebody who loves you that much.