Legalism breeds a sense of entitlement that turns us into complainers.
We've replaced the proclamation of Christ with an easy-listening legalism of do more and try harder.
Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.
[There are, in us] possibilities that take our breath away, and show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can imagine. Here is a world in which all is well, in spite of certain forms of death, death of hope, death of strength, death of responsibility, of fear and wrong, death of everything that paganism, naturalism and legalism pin their trust on.
Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.
Only Christ can free us from the prison of legalism, and then only if we are willing to be freed.
Legalism is looking to something besides Jesus Christ in order to be acceptable and clean before God.
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.
You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.
