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The material this week is INCREDIBLE! I am so excited to share it with you!
This week we get a chance to look at our lives and evaluate where legalism may lurk. Legalism isn’t always obvious, but it’s affects are. Like a wind, you can’t always see it, but you can see the impact it has, so we want to invite God to show us where we have bought in to the performance trap, as this is a sure indicator that legalism may be having its way with us.
This week we will see the difference between legalism and grace and one way we will do that is by becoming well acquainted with grace in many forms. This is where this study really gets GOOD!
Do you ever evaluate yourself based on if you ate 0 to 5 today? Or based on if you lost weight in the past week? (Hopping on the scale may indicate you are caught in a performance-based mentality.)
If you are living in a way that how you feel about yourself is based on your performance in some way, you probably feel discouraged and exhausted on the one hand or prideful and energized on the other. That may not sound so bad, but there is no stability on that pendulum! We swing from one extreme to the other. This is what Thin Within calls “The Path of My Performance.” We want to get off of that path and enjoy what God has in mind instead!
Let’s cease striving and know that he is God. Let’s lean into his grace and let him carry us along. In fact, the approval issue has been dealt with. We have God’s love, approval. Let’s tell ourselves the truth: God has lavishly poured grace all over us.
Have you ever thought about diets and how they have so much in common with Legalism? In fact, diets are rooted in legalism. If we have a long dieting history, we may have brought legalism with us (even subtly) into our Thin Within experience.
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Colossians 2:20-23
Let’s get the legalistic mentality out of our Thin Within/HEAL journey.
This week, you will get to look at the self-imposed rules you may still have in your life, left over from your dieting history. You may even be combining a dieting approach with 0 to 5 eating. Let’s dissect that mentality this week, too.
Let’s not buy the lie that victory can be bought with our self-will!
God’s perfect love casts out fear and allow us to embark on a freedom filled way of eating and living. Yes, inform your conscience. Turn to the Lord and do it for his glory.
Homework assignment:
- Complete the Personal Study portion of Lesson 5 – An Aisle of Grace
- Ask God show you where legalism lurks in your thinking and living. Share with us here what God has shown you already about this or as he shows you this week!
- Ask him to help you to sense his approval and love for you that is based on Christ’s “performance” at the cross, rather than on your ability to “wow” him!
- Connect with your accountability partner.
- Check in here and share how God is at work through the study this week.
I haven’t had a chance to read the study yet, but I will say this….I used to be a serious overexerciser – I relate to the fear of missing a workout because of illness. I worked out like crazy for fear of gaining weight, I thought it was the answer to lose weight and I never gave myself a break. I eventually had some health issues, somewhat related to the stress I was putting on my body, and I had to stop working out for a season. I am now so much more reasonable about it. For instance, I had planned to workout today, but I’m not sure if I will – and I’m ok with that. That’s progress.
That’s all to say that as I listened to Heidi speak of legalism, I realized I was doing just that – I had printed out a month long challenge for the workout dvds that I do and had planned to (mostly) follow it for the month of June. As Heidi spoke, I reached to the stack of papers next to my computer and put that calendar in the recycling! I will have the Lord guide me in my exercise, not some website.
Thanks so much for sharing this, CMK. I love hearing how God is at work in our midst.
Heidi,
thank you for the message today. LOVED IT! : )
No amount of my performance is going to make God love me more or less. This is so freeing to the soul! 🙂
I took my batteries out of my 2 scales and put the scales away in the closet underneath some sheets. Out of site and mind. I’m so serious about following the Holy Spirit leading. I want to die to my flesh! the pull of the scales has reared up it’s ugly head! So I’m putting it to death.
I was rewarded a GEM the other day when I put on my barn coat…I could button it up all the way, especially around my belly! I was amazed at how loose my coat felt. Never has it ever fit like this…Yes it is still chili enough in MT, to put on a coat. I was even more convinced and encouraged to keep going in this direction. God just use the coat to show me that I was making progress.
It feels so good in my heart to really be free and not fear when my next meal will be. My stomach hunger will tell me when it is time, and when that time comes I can make some choices as what to eat as I feel lead of the Spirit of God. This is so wonderful… I can hardly believe how simple this is. God’s ways are peaceful and not a heavy yoke around my neck. Before I felt like I had a heavy chain around my neck with a ball on the end of it, trying to drag it around every where I went. I can now say, that chain has been broken off and there is NO going back to the old ways I left behind in the dessert of EGYPT all those false god’s. WOW! Praise you Lord Jesus. : )
John 8:35-37
King James Version (KJV)
35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
King James Version (KJV)
by Public Domain
Reformation Study Bible
8:36 if the Son sets you free. Regeneration (the new birth) is the work of the Holy Spirit (3:3–8), accomplished on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf (3:14–16).
free indeed. Jesus was not speaking of political freedom, nor merely a freedom by which we are relieved from physical bondage. True freedom is to serve God, to fulfill the purposes of those specially created in God’s image. Sin deprives us of this fulfillment because sin clouds our minds, degrades our feelings, and enslaves our wills. This is what the Reformers called “total depravity”; its only remedy is the grace of God in spiritual rebirth (3:3). See “Christian Liberty” at Gal. 5:1.
Yesterday I babysat my oldest sons 2 kids and I noticed that my daughter in law had baked a bunch of chocolate chip cookies and I had several throughout the day, one at a time when hungry and sometimes just because my grandaughter had her little hand in them. I took them to McDonald’s for lunch and to play and I was aghast as I was eating my big mac to see on the bottom of the carton that it had 29 grams of fat! Then I thought about how I was so very legalistic about checking fat grams on everything and would not get things that had too many grams of fat. I did not eat all of it, but still felt a bit guilty for getting it. But then I thought about how I had walked in the living room while watching TV waitng for the time to get the kids out of bed, then took Emily’s babydolls for a walk and chased her around the park before lunch so as long as I got the miles in it was okay.
I barely had time to get home after my babysitting and fix supper then rushed to the ballpark for my youngest grandson’s baseball games and got home finally at 8:30 PM. I ended up bingeing that night and felt so guilty about it and it dawned on me that I had not had time to spend any time with God that day and did not think to ask him for guidance in my eating. Instead of doing all that walking in front of their TV that morning, I could have done my bible study and prayer journal along with my contemplative prayer time and been much better prepared for an exhausted evening of bingeing! I have found the more time I spend with God, the less obsessive I am about food and eating and I need constant interaction with God to be prepared for what life throws at me whether it be food or difficult relationships. Today I made sure to get my God time in and I feel so much better inside and out!
Sue…it makes all the difference, doesn’t it? 🙂