Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:12

In Matthew 16, Jesus had a familiar encounter with Pharisees and the Sadducees who were demanding a sign from him to confirm his authority as a prophet and, perhaps, as the Messiah. After the encounter, he and the twelve shoved off in a boat for another location. Somewhere on their short voyage the disciples discovered that no one had brought bread. As they discovered their dilemma, Jesus said, “Be on your guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

The twelve thought he was somehow discussing their dilemma and the fact that they had pushed off on a journey without provisions. After some discussion, they discerned that he had not been talking about the properties of a great loaf of bread but rather he had been talking about the teaching of the religious leaders of Israel. Their teaching was a well-developed theology of rules and laws for serving God. It was legalism in its fullest sense. It defined every aspect of the believer’s life and declared what was and was not acceptable to God.

I really like what Graham Cooke says about this in his little book, Qualities of a Spiritual Warrior. He says, “Part of His (Jesus) ministry was to take a stand against religiosity in church leadership. ‘Woe’ is a primary exclamation of grief and also denunciation. In Matthew 23:13-29, He used it on eight occasions. He called church leaders hypocrites, blind men, blind guides, and whited sepulchers. His foremost accusation was that they shut off the Kingdom of Heaven from people because they had no experience of it themselves.

In mentoring the disciples, He was developing a church leadership that could carry the message and lifestyle of the kingdom in themselves. He taught them how to believe God, how to move in the supernatural, how to have power over the enemy, and how to love people and release them into a lifestyle of blessing and favor…

He stood against a religious system that had captured people in a legalistic environment that prevented them from being loved fully by God. When the system defines the experience we can have with God, then we have no freedom. Jesus came to set us free from an organized religious experience that teaches us how to think, speak and act before God. It is the role of the Holy Spirit to renew our minds, not for man to program them. Jesus came to overthrow a system that does not allow us the joy of exposure to his fullness, anointing, and glory” (p.133-134).

The power of the Kingdom of God cannot flourish in a legalistic system of rules and regulations that place God in a well-defined box. Does that mean that “anything goes?” Of course not. Paul gives some healthy and biblical boundaries for the expression of the things of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12-14. However, he does not restrict their expression but only regulates them so that their expression always reflects love. It also does not mean that those individuals who want a greater experience of Jesus through his Spirit are to ignore the rules of the house set by its leaders. A great deal of harm has been done by well-meaning people who have gone off to a conference on miracles and decided to come home and “blow the roof off” their conservative congregation. Submission to leadership is an important principle in the kingdom. Finding a greater expression of the Kingdom may mean going to another environment where it is welcomed rather than “trying to shake things up” where you are. Encouraging leadership to be more open is one thing, rebelling against their boundaries us another.

We often think of legalism in terms of churches that do not accept the full ministry of the Holy Spirit but that is not always the case. There are non-charismatic churches that are full of grace but have not yet come into the miraculous measures of the Holy Spirit. They are open but have not yet arrived. There are also “charismatic” churches that are just as guilty of legalism as cessationsist churches. Some of those churches have strictly defined dress codes, hairstyles, prohibitions on makeup, and so forth that regulate the life of believers. Legalism can creep into any theology like leaven in a loaf of bread and change the very nature of faith and freedom.

Even on a personal level, we can begin to judge other believers on the basis of them worshipping God or serving him in ways contrary to our own preferences. Some of our preferences can morph into “laws” that define how God works in people and churches. There is a place for testing spirits and judging prophecies etc. but that testing must be led by the Spirit not produced by flesh or our intellect. Before declaring that God does not work in certain ways or accept certain things we need to be very careful and diligently seek the Lord.

Acts 15 is a perfect example.   The Jerusalem church came together to decide whether God was actually accepting the Gentiles and working among them. Fifteen hundred years of religion and tradition had planted deep convictions that only Jews or Gentiles that had converted to Judaism and all of its laws were acceptable to God. But God had been doing crazy things among the Gentiles who had not been circumcised, did not keep the Sabbath, and who ignored the feast days. Peter himself had to give an account of why he even entered into the home of Gentiles and why he then baptized them. The feeling in the Jerusalem church was that “God doesn’t work that way.” But, he did… and after seeking the mind of the Spirit on the matter, the leaders of the church determined that God had accepted the Gentiles without them coming under the traditions of the Jews.

Legalism, the leaven of the Pharisees, quenches the Spirit whether in churches or in our own hearts. It is actually the default setting for our fallen nature trying to work our way to heaven so we all have to guard against it. We would do well to ask the Spirit, on a regular basis, to highlight areas where we are slipping into a religious or legalistic mode because it is hard to recognize. A critical or judgmental spirit in us is a sure sign that we are slipping in that direction. For all of us then who want to enjoy the fullness of God, we need to guard against that leaven. Be blessed today. Enjoy your freedom in Christ and let others do so as well.

Remember the old saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop?” I’m not totally sure what that means but I think the idea is that staying busy keeps you out of trouble – so stay busy. I have discovered in my own life that busy hands can also be the devil’s workshop for believers.   It’s not that the “busy hands” are involved in sinful things, but rather they leave no margins for the deeper and more important things of God. It’s amazing how many believers do not have time for the things of God because of so many commitments to “other good things.”

As I survey my own life and the lives of many other believers I know, the “drug of choice” of our culture seems to be busyness and constant connection. The more we do, the more significant we feel – productive, included, achieving, connected. Our children are most prone to the busyness and feel the pressure of it. The Midland school system had a rash of teenage suicides a few years ago that left everyone breathless. Most of these young people were not abuse victims, they weren’t strung out on drugs, and they weren’t from “bad families.” Several were popular, high -achievers in their schools. Interviews later with kids at risk for suicide revealed that these elementary, junior high, and high school students felt so much pressure to perform, to be part of the “in crowd,” and to “do everything” that they were contemplating suicide rather than face a life of that kind of pressure and busyness.

Think about it. Even when adults get together it’s not long before they start comparing their weekly or monthly itineraries – the job, the early morning meetings, the workouts, the evening meetings, the basketball, volleyball, and the baseball games they had to attend or travel to. Christians get to throw in all their ministry commitments on top of that. It’s as if being way overbooked in your life is a badge of honor or an indicator of significance. God’s injunction to David to “Be still and know that I am God” is still quoted but is typically something we aspire to do rather than something we actually do. Even when the preacher quotes it, everyone winks in their heart knowing that he isn’t all that serious because right after the sermon he will be asking his people to commit to serving an additional night of the week in some ministry.

There is something in our fallen nature that wants to work. Maybe it gives us the illusion of self-sufficiency or gives us a reason not to do any introspection or evaluation of our lives. For the most part, God didn’t have to command his people to work, but to take a day off from work every week. Obviously the Sabbath was created to honor the Lord but also to bless God’s people. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. We need the rest. We need the margins in our lives.

How many times do we turn down a “divine appointment” to speak into someone’s life, to disciple someone, to share our faith with a friend at the office, to have a hurting friend come stay at our house for a few days, etc. because we know that to do so would demand time and relationship capital that we don’t have because we are already “all booked up?” I fear we often miss the most important things (myself included) because we have no holy margins in our lives for significant time with God or for those little detours he wants us to take to touch a life, to plant a seed, or to water what someone else has already done. I’m afraid that someday we’ll meet Jesus and point out all the hard work we did for him and everything we built in his name. He’ll smile and tell us how much he appreciated our efforts. He might even tell us that what we built was impressive…however, it just wasn’t what he wanted us to build because we got so little direct input from him. We can be like a builder who builds an amazing house for a client without having any real conversations about what they are looking for or without consulting them in the process to see if he is on track with their vision and desires. That’s a pretty risky way to build a house. I’ve known builders who were just too busy to have those ongoing meetings with their clients and in the end there were always some problems. If we are too busy to meet, we can be like that as builders of God’s house on the earth.

I’ve always been impressed with the focus of Jesus on a few primary things in his life that always took precedent over everything else. He kept his small group to twelve. Bigger isn’t always better. He turned down invitations to hold month long healing conferences even when he was trending. He often stole away to spend quiet time with the Father when there was so much that “still needed to be done,” and he had time to take detours on his way to some town because the Father showed him someone who needed a touch on the way. If Jesus had operated on highly scheduled agendas, I think he would have had far less impact on the world and would have walked in much less power than he did.

Jesus, Paul, and the other great men of the New Testament seemed to live by God’s agenda for their lives rather than the world’s agenda, cultural norms, or even by all the demands of the church. In review, their lives seem sort of ragged and even ill-planned, at times, but look at the impact.

The world will not relent. Satan will not relent. Everywhere you turn someone will ask for your time and it will all be good things. We need to establish some holy margins, a Sabbath principle, in our lives so that we have time for God and time for those little detours that bear so much fruit. We’ll need to pray and will have to decide to stop living at a crazy, spirit-killing pace. We’ll have to prune some things, but pruning always produces more fruit in the end. We’ll have to be the “bad guy” to our kids to trim their schedules but our lives cannot be defined or driven by cultural norms.

By definition, Christians must be counter-cultural. If we are like the culture then we loose our power to change the culture. God will have to show you which parts to trim but my guess is that we all need to trim some things to create margins for us to hear and obey God. Anyway…think about it…if you can find the time. Blessings.

The 1992 book entitled Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend has become a classic among counselors and therapists.  In a nutshell, the book directs us to maintain healthy boundaries in our lives and relationships that let in good things and keep out bad things. Boundaries are important and biblical.

If you think about it, God has always been big on boundaries. He clearly defined sin and said stay away.  He clearly established a principal that believers should not marry unbelievers.  He even marked off boundaries for nations, the tribes of Israel and the nation of Israel.  Boundaries set limits.  They mark what belongs to you and what does not belong to you; what is safe and what is unsafe; what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. What is sinful and destructive and what is righteous and life giving.  They establish responsibilities and freedom from responsibility.

The key is knowing what boundaries God has established and actually believing that those “No Trespassing” signs are not there to restrict you but to keep you from disaster. In the area of spiritual warfare boundaries are especially critical.  As I said in my last blog we have just finished one of our healing and freedom weekends where dozens of believers discovered that they were being afflicted or oppressed by demons at some level.  It may surprise you to discover that believers can be oppressed by demons and that so many are.  Part of the problem is that the church in America has neglected to teach biblical principles about demons and deliverance for decades.  The result is that a large inventory of the “critters” has accumulated in believers and their families undetected and undisturbed.

Many of these demonic spirits have attached themselves to Christians because we have not observed God’s boundaries.  If you walk through a field of grass burrs you are going to pick up a few.  If you do that in West Texas you will find them attached to your jeans and your shoelaces when you immerge form the field.  You will also discover that they will inflict some pain as you try to remove them and that they hold on with some tenacity.  Demons are much the same.  If you play in Satan’s playgrounds you are likely to bring some unwelcome friends home with you.

Those “playgrounds” take many forms.  Ungodly relationships are probably at the top of the list.  It is a rare believer who makes it through high school and college and into marriage without being involved in several relationships where God was an after thought if he was thought of at all.  Most believers enter marriage having had several sexual partners beforehand.  Many have lived through seasons of alcohol and drugs.  Pornography is often an issue and many have had abortions.  Some have dabbled in eastern religions, immersed themselves in movies and literature that are sexual or occult in nature. All of those “playgrounds” open the door to demonic oppression.   After those “prodigal” seasons they thankfully return but often they return with serious “grass burrs” attached.

Something in our fallen nature always believes that we will be the exception to the rule.  We are often aware of God’s boundaries and the “No Trespassing” signs but we think that somehow we can violate those boundaries without consequence.  But according to Paul, God will not be mocked. Whatever a man sows he will reap. (See Gal. 5).  Seasons of unrepented sin, unforgiveness, curses we have spoken over ourselves, sinful and especially sexual relationships, occult dabbling’s, and emotional trauma seem to be open doors through which the enemy enters – even for Christians.  A great deal of pain and work would be avoided if we honored God’s boundaries and if we taught our children of the spiritual consequences of walking through fields that God has told us to avoid.

Too often we warn our children of consequences in the natural realm– pregnancy, STD’s, addictions, etc. but don’t warn them of consequences in the spiritual realm.  Out children then believe that birth control, antibiotics, condoms, and recreational use of drugs and alcohol will keep them from the consequences so why no play in that playground. They need to understand that sin has real consequences – spiritual torment and bondage – in the spiritual realm that birth control and support groups can’t resolve.  Boundaries are good.  We should honor them and teach them.  Taking and eating in the face of God’s clear commands is not a good idea.  Be blessed today and a blessing to others.