Living Under the Influence of the Law

 

Romans 6:14: "For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."

There are many influences on our lives. Our upbringing can influence how we see ourselves, and even God. Our past mistakes can define our thoughts. Guilt from our past and fear of an uncertain future shape how we interpret the world around us. Church hurt often determines whether we decide to show up on Sunday or not. All these influences can affect our view of God, our self-perception, and the relationships we have with others. 

The apostle Paul made a statement that suggests that there are two influences that impact our lives. Of these two influences one reveals the brokenness at the core of our human nature. It is the influence of the law that results in a sense of stringent obligation to do the right things or make the right choices that we believe are required by God to please Him. When it comes to our relationship with God, our self-dependance leads us to perform for God because of a skewed version of who God is caused by some of these life influences. As a result, we are naturally prone to depend upon ourselves to fix our problems, carry our hurts, search for acceptance, and correct our mistakes.  When marriages fall apart or trauma impacts how we relate to others and how we see ourselves, those influences shape our perception of God and ourselves, reinforcing how we relate to others around us.

Despite living with an imperfect life, we wake up each day with a desire to express our love for God. The law's influence manifests by our efforts to fix what we perceive as wrong with our life. We pray to find the answers, but with little success. We lumber through scripture with scant understanding, but with a sense of obligation because Bible reading is what good Christians do. We may even join a group of like-minded Christians to find encouragement. We find that this may work for a while, but even that falls short of the life we desire with God. 

In Paul’s day, it was the act of circumcision that many believed was the sign of spiritual devotion (Acts 15:1–2, Gal. 5:2–4). Paul reminded the Galatian believers that if they relied on circumcision to find freedom in Christ, they would be “obligated to obey the whole law” (Gal. 5:3). The performance mindset leads us to a similar situation. I learned this the hard way. To fulfill my obligations to God, I held regular quiet times, engaged in various spiritual disciplines, and sought recognition for a successful ministry. Guilt often followed when I failed to maintain one of these obligations. Because the law of God requires perfect obedience (Heb. 7:19), I was painfully aware of how far short I fell from that mark. Trying to do the right things or make the right decisions never actually brought the peace and rest in Christ I had hoped for. Self-effort and performance only spurred me to strive more and baited me to rehearse my failures again and again. Unmet obligations almost always overshadowed the elusive dream of freedom in Christ that Paul described to the Galatian church (Gal. 5:1).

If we keep trying to do the right things to please God, we will do nothing perfectly other than fail to live up to those expectations. In essence, the perfect law of God does its job. The failure is not with the law but with our inability to live up to the expectations of the law. As Paul suggested, we make ourselves lawbreakers by the very act of trying to do the right things but never actually being liberated from the wrong things (Gal. 2:18). We imagine that liberation happens through more effort. The more we explore grace, the less we will think about what we do, and the better off we’ll be. The obligations we feel will compel us to always do more to find forgiveness or acceptance. The law does remind us of our need for forgiveness, but it leaves us desperately trying to satisfy that need by our own performance, with failure as the mark of a job poorly done. 

So where does the law's influence leave us? I have talked to countless people in the church who are influenced by the law. Most of us have succumbed to its influence without even knowing it. So when someone suggests that the law influences how we relate to God and others and how we see ourselves, we balk at the idea. We argue that we were saved by grace and most of us know at least on an intellectual basis that there is nothing that we can do to please God. But then many question their standing with God when a divorce is pending or when a childhood trauma makes you privately question how you could ever relate to God as your Father. When life is messy, that is usually when the sense of obligation drives our efforts to relate to God.

The solution to law's influence can be found in grace. The obligation we feel to find that sweet spot of peace with God, ourselves, and others by doing and believing the right things will always drive us back to finding the solution within ourselves, but never actually doing so.

The solution to the law's influence is found in another law. It is the law of grace that influences a completely different kind of life. Instead of obligation, love drives our works. Instead of performance, trust in His work motivates our actions. The law's influence will always bow to the transforming power of grace. 

Click this link to find out more about the influence of grace from my new book "Living Under the Influence: How Grace Sets Us Free from the Performance Mindset." 

Click this link to visit my author's website.