Have you ever fallen prey to the mentality of "all or nothing?" A lot of us have. We throw ourselves into something completely...or we don't try at all. This goes along with black and white thinking. Something is either 100% right or 100% wrong, and if we ever err on the wrong side, we just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:
1) You're on a strict diet. You cheat a little bit by eating a fun sized candy bar, then feel so guilty you just give up and decide you'll start on your diet tomorrow and spend the rest of your day gorging on junk food.
2) You are determined to be a good Christian witness at work, but then you get sucked into a gossipy conversation with coworkers, and then, feel so badly about it that you decide you shouldn't try to be a witness, since you already ruined your testimony by gossiping, and you never end up telling your coworkers you're even a Christian.
3) You miss a couple of weeks of church, due to sickness and vacationing. Feeling you are now out of the loop, you allow yourself to just get out of the habit of going, and never get back into regular attendance.
4) Here is a more subtle example: You work a job you love, and want to do your very best. There is always so much to do that you never know when you're really done for the day. You throw yourself into doing this job you really love. Your boss and coworkers praise your efforts, which further reinforces your hard work, but you never really know how to put down boundaries with this job, and the lines are fuzzy between your work life and personal life. This is especially easy to fall into with a salaried job, as opposed to hourly wage, but can happen in any job.
As humans, we can easily fall into all or nothing thinking. We can also push good things (like enjoying a tasty snack, taking care of your health, working hard, etc.) to an unhealthy extreme. That's more of the all or nothing thinking.
Some things really are totally black or white. The Bible is very clear about what is right and what is wrong. First Peter 1:15 tells us be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. What is holiness? It's the perfection of God! Are we capable of that? No! Romans 3:10 tells us, There is none righteous, no, not one. Our sinfulness is ingrained into who we are, and that is why we need a Savior. Once we have received Christ, God sees us in the righteousness of His Son! But in a practical way, we don't always act righteously. We want to! Oh, we want to! As Christians, we have that new nature, that desire to please God and do right. If we try this in our own strength, we fall into that very all or nothing thinking I've been talking about. Some Christians (myself included at times!) fall into perfectionism, trying to do everything just right. There is nothing wrong with aiming for excellence. Second Timothy 2:15 says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. This refers to correctly living by God's word, and that is what we should do. The problem happens when we try to do it in our own strength, and beat ourselves up when we fail (which we all do). It is also a problem when we try to help ourselves obey the Bible by adding unbiblical rules to ourselves. That's what the Pharisees did, and it only puts a burden on us! It is also part of all or nothing thinking. For example:
1) The Bible makes it clear sex is for marriage between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24, First Corinthians 6:18, Hebrews 13:4), and anything apart from this is sinful. But some have added a lot of rules to this, making male and female relationships needlessly complicated. When I was a teen and young adult, a lot of Christians nixed dating, or physical contact of any kind, or kissing before your wedding day. If that was someone's personal choice, there is nothing wrong with that, but to put that on everyone when that is not what the Bible says is legalism!
2) The Bible says to abstain from all appearance of evil. (First Thessalonians 5:22). I will be the first to confess I have inadvertently misused this verse in the past, and have seen many others do so as well. Other translations have this verse as saying to avoid all forms of evil (do a study on this!). The verse is saying to avoid evil, and we know what evil is, because God has spelled it out in His word. But many of us have taken the translation that is most to our liking and have told ourselves and others that they need to avoid things that even appear evil. I have known people who refused to go to movies, just because someone they know might see them coming out of a perfectly wholesome movie, but think they might have seen a bad one. Again, this is fine if someone feels convicted by God to do this. We are told scripturally not to make the weaker believer stumble (Romans 14), so if seeing you come out of a theater will make them stumble, then avoiding it would be the right choice. But making this into a seemingly godly rule that everyone should be expected to follow is no longer obeying the Bible, but adding to it.
3) The Bible says all foods are permissible to eat (Acts 10:15), but also that not everything is the best for us (First Corinthians 10:23). That gives us some guidelines, but not strict rules about what to eat and what not to eat. Some Christians I have known virtue signal about being a vegetarian, a vegan, only eating organic, gluten-free, etc. Again, there is nothing wrong with someone eating the diet they believe is right for them (especially if it is necessary for heath reasons), but to spiritualize it and put it on other people is beyond anything the Bible teaches, yet I have met many who do this. One friend and I were talking about some women in a Bible study we attended, and my friend said, "It's like they've made a whole religion out of food!" These women had criticized us for trusting the FDA to approve safe food, and for shopping at regular grocery stores instead of their favorite specialty health stores. It was okay for them to follow their diet, but it was okay for us to follow ours too. Before God, no one was in the wrong in terms of eating, and it was legalistic of them to try to put that on us.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. We have all had times where we or someone we knew went into all or nothing thinking. Usually, people are well-intentioned when they do this, but it isn't the path to righteousness.
What we need, instead is grace. But what is grace? I have never seen any biblical attribute abused and misused as much as grace. Some people think legalism is having standards, but grace is doing whatever you want. That isn't true at all. God's standard of holiness still stands, and in oder to have a right relationship with Him, we need to be holy too! We can't, so Jesus did it for us! That's why it is possible. God didn't break His own rule and say, "Well, I'm just going to accept sin." No, He made the way by sending Jesus! Now, because the Holy Spirit is inside of believers, we are empowered to live a godly way! Grace is actually a higher standard, not lower. In Matthew 5 (starting in verse 21), Jesus does a series of explanations that start with "You have heard it said..." The first example he does is murder, and He explains that murder isn't just the act of killing, but just to be angry is the same in God's eyes as if you really killed someone! Jesus blew them out of the water with these statements, showing them how incapable they were of living up to God's righteous standard (thus showing them why they needed a Savior!). That's why Jesus came! But now that we have that grace of salvation, we also have the grace to do right. We don't have to harbor sinful anger in our hearts (there is non-sinful, non-murderous anger as well). We do not have to lust. We don't have to get revenge. God's grace empowers us to do better and live the righteous life!
Are we always going to live that standard of grace? No. We still sin, and that's another thing grace does. It helps you just get up and do the next right thing. You are not condemned when you fail. Jesus took that penalty. You can get up and move forward in victory! You don't have to feel defeated. Just make it right and move on!
The best example of grace I have ever heard was years ago at an AWANA conference in California. One of my fellow workshop presenters said:
"Legalism is your mother giving you $1 and telling you you'd better buy a week's worth of groceries with it, then punishing you because you were unable. Grace is your mother giving you $100 to go buy yourself some ice cream and letting you keep the change!" Legalism only brings failure. Grace empowers us! It isn't an excuse to sin. It is a higher standard, and the power to do it, and even the power to move on from failure!
Next time you're tempted to give into all or nothing thinking, remember, you have $100 to buy an ice cream cone, and you can keep the change! God is empowering you!
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