OBEDIENCE IS THE GOAL
Most people do not think of reading as a listening activity. For God, listening to and obeying his voice is the goal — not just reading. Therefore, when reading, the goal should be to listen with our heart while reading with our mind. But since the Biblical idea of listening/hearing also contains the command to obey, some kind of follow up response is necessary.

Changes we are moved to make in response to hearing God’s voice may sometimes move us to make big, sudden, radical decisions about our relationship with religion. More likely, however, we will find that spiritual growth is a gradual, little-by-little process that shows we are gaining freedom from religion. Since it is all spiritual, those changes are difficult to describe with human words. The character of our religious life is discussed in some detail in HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE where we learn that there are many kinds of life. While God is concerned about all of our life, there are two parts that are of special interest to him: Our religious life and our spiritual life.

God is concerned about our religious life because religion is sin. And he is concerned about our spiritual life because it reflects the attitude of our hearts toward him.

There are several ways to test whether our heart is close to God. The most important way is to apply what learn when we hear his voice — not from what we read. That means we obey (i.e. apply) what we hear God tell us through his spirit. But we want to be careful to obey the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law because the spirit gives life while the letter gives death.

We can call that kind of response “obedience” or “legalism” if we want, but it can also be called “following God’s laws/commandments/precepts”. We can call it whatever we want, but it is Godly legalism because we are choosing to follow God’s laws — not religious laws created by men. It is Godly legalism if the law is written on our heart. Ungodly legalism is when we do it because the laws we follow are written down, promoted and followed according to the traditions of men.

God calls such legalism works of the flesh that counts for nothing. But we also know that he expects people to obey what they hear/read him say. Thus the object of reading God’s word, which is the equivalent of hearing his voice, should be so that we can obey what we have heard God speak to our hearts. If we read for any other reason, we read for the wrong reason.

Once we get the hang of it, obedience to God’s word becomes our life, and we, like Jesus, will live to die so that others may live. And we, like Jesus, we will only do what we see the father doing, and say what the father says. We will uncover deep mysteries that expose the motives of our hearts and the hearts of other religionists.

And after the motives of our hard, religious hearts are exposed, we will not want to do the religious things what we did and still see everyone else doing. Nor will we talk the religious talk that we once talked and still see everyone else talking. But more than just stopping these activities, we will be grieved in our hearts over the fact that we once did these things and grieve for our friends, family, and others whom we still observe doing them. We will see it all for what it is: Gross, showy religion that people do to build their reputations as godly people while following and serving other gods. We will see all religion as God sees it: Abomination. And we will begin to see why God wants to utterly destroy religion.

But if we continue to do what everyone else is doing and say what they are saying, we prove that we a part of the religious system that God wants to destroy. We have stumbled over the stumbling block of the literal words of the Bible and failed to interpret its symbolic mysteries.

We must be constantly aware of apparent Biblical legalism that compels us to go somewhere (e.g. church, synagogue, etc.) and do something ceremonial. When we make a doctrine out of a small portion of scripture that appears to command such behavior without considering and applying it in the context of all scripture, we make the same mistake that Jews and Christians have made for thousands of years. The basic mistake (i.e. stumbling) is to interpret the isolated portion of scripture literally and blindly do what it says just because it is listed as a commandment or because a Bible character did it. This is not the same thing as being led by the spirit. This is not the same thing as listening to God’s voice.

The way we see it, humans tend to be legalistic because there is something in most of us that sincerely wants to be obedient to God. No one who believes that God exists or might exist wants to be on his bad side and suffer his wrath in this life or in the afterlife. When we combine that tendency with cultural training in religion, we have religion run amok in the world. But, because that urge is there, we need to be careful that we do not obey God’s word legalistically. God wants his people to enter into his rest, but those who are legalistic will not enter into that rest. Those who interpret what God says literally fall into the trap of legalism and legalistic works (i.e. religion) thus disqualifying themselves for the rest that God wants for them.

God does not like legalism because it is the opposite of being at rest. Moreover, the hearts of legalistic people are not oriented toward God. Rather, they are oriented toward following religious rules and regulations created by men. Legalistic people are religious people who practice their religion in the flesh — not in the Spirit. In God’s view, they are following other gods (i.e. men) who created the religious rules they follow.

We see this tendency to be religious most clearly in the Abrahamic religions. Jews and Muslims each pride themselves on their legalistic obedience to the written law. Unfortunately, however, their hearts are far from God even though they worship him in the flesh. Christians claim to be under grace and not under the law. That is their way of convincing themselves they are not legalistic. They pride themselves on being free in Christ, but they do not realize that they are as bound to legalism as Jews and Muslims are.

The only difference between the three religions is that they follow different codified (i.e. legal) traditions. They each believe that they are following God’s holy word, but they really follow religions that are based on rules made by men. They all honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from him because they do not listen to his voice.

The reason it is important to discuss this issue of legalism in the context of Bible study is found in the tendency to create religion based on our literal interpretations of the Bible. This is exactly why we find so many different religions all supposedly based on the Bible. Just as it is possible to honor God with our lips while our heart is far from him, it is possible to read the Bible while our heart is far from God. And it is when our hearts are far from God that we are most likely to create and practice religion.

Therefore, if we still practice religion after reading the Bible, we have stumbled over the literal words and failed to listen to God’s voice while studying.