There is something that shepherds have been known to do to sheep that on the surface sounds brutal and inhumane. If one of the flock (particularly a little lamb) is consistently getting lost and wandering off, the shepherd will find it, break its legs, place it on his shoulders, and nurse it back to health. What happens during the healing process is that sheep learns total dependance on and trust in the shepherd. Because of it’s broken leg, it needs the shepherd more than ever and doesn’t leave his side. More importantly, the shepherd doesn’t leave the sheep’s side.

At first, that causes us to potentially be angry and the shepherd, or offer up other ways to train the sheep. However, if the shepherd continued to allow that sheep to wander, before long, it’s going to be eaten by a predator. By breaking the legs, the shepherd now has the opportunity to keep the sheep safe, but to teach it dependance on the shepherd, which is really the ultimate goal.

By comparison, there’s an aspect of our relationship to our Shepherd that is difficult to talk about, and even more difficult to go through - His discipline. The writer of the book of Hebrews explains it much better than I could:

“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
HEBREWS 12:5-11

Our world has made discipline an enemy of love, but that passage teaches us that it is the very limitless, extravagant, perfect love of God that fuels His discipline of us. As a matter of fact, the author goes so far as to say that if you’ve never experienced the discipline of the Lord, you’re not a legitimate son or daughter. That means that in all of our efforts to avoid the discipline of God and not talk about it because it’s uncomfortable, we’ve avoided one of the indicators that we are His children!

His discipline is always meant to draw us closer and make us more dependent on Him, which leads to holiness and the fruit of righteousness. It may be painful, but it will lead to your greater pleasure in Him. We may be tempted to get angry at Him or think we know a better way for Him to work in our lives, but if we trust Him and the discipline He brings, it will always result in our ultimate good. If He is able to take all the brokenness and sin of our lives and turn it into something beautiful, how much more can He use His very own work of discipline for our good and His glory?

Has God ever broken your legs? How did you respond? You can be sure that if He has brought discipline in your life, it is because He is the Good Shepherd who desires to give you abundant life. In the meantime, you and I must stop our wanderings and depend fully on Him and His leading in our lives.

We live in a DIY (do it yourself) culture. We have figured out how to create really useful tools out of things like plastic soda bottles. If something breaks in our home, there’s probably a YouTube video out there that will walk us through how to fix it - after the person recording the video tells us their life story and why they love cats of course. Not only that, but if we think we are getting sick, a quick search of our symptoms on Web M.D. will quickly allow us to diagnose ourselves with a disease that will surely kill us.

The point is, in the information age, we have the ability to figure out what’s wrong in our lives and what we can do about it. Can this be done with legalism? I would venture to guess that most of us hate legalism and would be willing to do almost whatever it takes to make sure we don’t become legalistic ourselves. Unfortunately, we all have at least some tendencies that border on legalism in our lives. So how can we know if we’re being legalistic, or if we are actually pursuing holiness? I’ve come up with a list that is not exhaustive, but I think may be helpful in examining ourselves to see if we’ve fallen into this slippery slope that we hate so much.

1. The Joy is Gone.

Maybe our best biblical example of legalism would be the Pharisees and religious leaders in the Gospels. Out of every story we read of these men, you would be hard pressed to find even a hint of joy in their lives. Life for them was about keeping the rules, making sure others kept the rules, and adding to the rules to be really sure nobody broke them. Holiness was not a joy-filled pursuit, but hard work that was not for the faint of heart. If you can’t remember the last time prayer, Bible reading, or Christian fellowship stirred true joy in you, you may be showing signs of legalism.

2. Holiness is a Checklist Rather than a Pursuit.

Most of us have experienced the guilt of beginning a Bible reading plan and not following through. The popular “Bible app” has a feature called “streaks” that shows you how many consecutive days you’ve been in the app. I’m willing to bet that many of us have read the Bible on a particular day just to keep our “streak” alive. Legalism causes us to treat following Jesus like a checklist that ensures God still loves us rather than a pursuit of God. Holiness becomes more about checking a box than checking our hearts.

3. Your Standards are Higher for Others than Yourself.

Legalism asks of others more than it asks of ourselves. It holds others to a standard that we pray God doesn’t hold us to. In this way legalism becomes its own fatal flaw. The more we focus on how others are measuring up, the less we pay attention to our own walk and the further we drift away from the very standards we are holding others to. Pretty soon, our lives are flooded with the sins we spend all our time condemning others for.

4. You Can’t Celebrate Others’ Spiritual Success.

In John 9, the Pharisees spent so much time condemning the man born blind that they never actually celebrated his healing. Their immediate reaction was to ensure that he didn’t “cross the line” by giving glory to Jesus for this healing. While we don’t necessarily handle things exactly like the Pharisees, our legalism can often quench the joy and zeal of others because we never celebrate spiritual victories in their lives. Encouragement of others can quickly starve out our legalism because if we are able to celebrate their success, we won’t have as much time to condemn them for their failures.

5. People have Stopped Asking you for Spiritual Advice.

Jesus says of the legalistic Pharisees that “…they (the sheep) will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:5). Legalism steals from, kills, and destroys others. So why would they continue coming to you when you continue to burden them with guilt and shame rather than pointing them to repentance and redemption? If people avoid you when it comes to spiritual guidance and direction, it might just be because you’ve become a Pharisee, and they are looking for Jesus.