"Legalism or Obedience?"

This summer we have been spending some time discussing our pursuit of godliness.  As we think about obedience, there is always the danger that we will be accused of being legalistic (or that we might actually confuse godliness with legalism).  I found this article by Fred Zaspel to be helpful.  Here are a few excerpts:

....find a Christian who is careful to obey God in everything, and we won’t have to look far to find another Christian to call him a legalist. What do we make of this?
 
It’s a word we all hate, but exactly what is legalism? Legalism is that attempt to establish or maintain a right standing with God by means of our own efforts....

...Still more broadly the term is also used of those Christians who insist on extra-biblical standards of behavior and judge godliness accordingly. 

...But we must be careful not to confuse legalism with obedience. Obedience is not legalism. Obedience is obedience. God commands us to obey his Word, and when pressed with those commands we must not cry foul — “legalism!”  No, disobedience is sin, and obedience is not legalism.

On the contrary, any violation of God’s commands is sin, and there are no exceptions allowed. No custom, no family tradition, no “We’ve always done that!” will cover it. Scripture insists that violation of God’s law is sin.

Simply put, we needn’t fear that we may obey our Lord too much. Jesus said that if we love him, we will obey him.

Happily, God has promised in the New Covenant to give us a heart to obey him. And every true Christian has found that obedience to God is not a burdensome thing. This is the work of his Spirit within us to bring us to obey him — not legalistically but faithfully.