Growing Beyond Legalism: A Journey to True Freedom in Christ

Understanding the Struggle with Legalism

Growing up in a legalistic religion is a lot easier than most people would think. Rules are simple. They provide a clear indication of right and wrong. Leaving this community felt freeing but also confusing. There was so much spiritual warfare happening inside of me after I officially left the Mennonite church. I had to figure out who I was in Christ and what it truly looked like to follow Him.

When I left the church, I didn’t realize how much of the Bible is left up to interpretation. Much depends on the Holy Spirit giving discernment. This caused me to begin questioning and deconstructing aspects of Christianity. I began asking myself things like, “What is modesty?” In the Mennonite church, that question was simple. If you were a woman, you wore a dress. If you were a man, you wore pants and a button-up shirt. In that community, all these questions had clear-cut answers. After I left, I had no answers. This often left me doubting my salvation. I went from rules to “freedom.”

The Challenge of Spiritual Immaturity

When I first accepted Jesus and decided to take that step of obedience through baptism, I knew I believed in Him and that He died for my sins. I understood the core truths, but I did not know my Bible well. Because of my spiritual immaturity, I wandered and lived in sin. I did not have a strong understanding of how to study Scripture. So when I questioned anything, I relied heavily on Google and forums to see how others interpreted verses.

Being ignorant of Scripture and having no guardrails in place was extremely damaging. It left me convinced that smoking pot and getting drunk sometimes was probably fine. I justified it by thinking, “In the Bible, they talked about drinking wine merrily somewhere, I think.” I also reasoned that “marijuana is a plant, so it is natural, and if it is natural, it cannot be harmful, right?” It’s embarrassing, but that was truly my thought process. I would find myself arguing with Christians still in the Mennonite community about sin. My go-to rebuttal was, “That is the Old Testament, though,” often referring to Leviticus. This was how I dealt with each area of sin in my life. I cherry-picked what best suited me and felt offended when conviction confronted me.

The Journey to Freedom

It took me years of learning Scripture, listening for discernment from the Holy Spirit, and praying to finally feel free from the chains of legalistic thinking. I began to understand what following Christ truly looks like. For so long, I was consumed by sin, specifically. Is this a sin? Is that a sin? Once I felt I had figured it out, I fell into the trap of being a little judgmental when I felt other people were sinning.

A few years ago, a pastor gave a perfect analogy for legalistic churches. He compared their rules to guardrails, like the ones you see along the side of a cliff to prevent cars from falling off. These guardrails are placed near the danger to protect you. You can still see the cliff just beyond them, which allows you to recognize through discernment that you should not go past them. However, in a legalistic church, the guardrails are moved so far inward that when you drive beside them, you see no danger in sight. These guardrails were originally placed with good intentions to protect people. But eventually, you wander just a little beyond them and think, “There is no danger here. I am actually free to go as far as I want.” You keep going and eventually wander so far that you fall off the true edge into destruction. That was the pastor’s point.

Biblical commands are like guardrails placed right at the edge of the cliff. They do not restrict all freedom; they protect us from destruction. Legalism moves those guardrails far away from the real danger, then treats them as if they are the actual edge. As a result, people eventually cross man-made boundaries without any immediate harm and begin to ignore God’s actual boundaries.

A Shift in Perspective

My focus should never have been fixated on sin. My focus should have always been on God, gaining knowledge from Scripture, and praying for discernment. Trusting the sanctification process and asking God to make me holy. Not perfect, because I will never live up to Jesus’s perfection, but holy because He is holy. I didn’t realize holiness is something that I should be achieving. I didn’t know that it was the standard we were to live up to. But 1 Peter 1:14-15 says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”

This changed my perspective on sin entirely. Instead of fixating in a sort of legalistic black-and-white way, I started asking myself, “Is this what my flesh wants? Will my actions glorify God? Will this keep me on the narrow path and make me holy?” Sometimes asking these questions makes me put guardrails in place, which is so ironic because the absence of guardrails is what I celebrated after leaving the Mennonite church. Now, here I am, putting some of them back on my own terms.

The Importance of Personal Guardrails

Everyone’s guardrails might look slightly different depending on their struggles and convictions. The focus isn’t on what your neighbours look like. A specific guardrail I put up is an alcohol limit of 1-2 drinks. This is something I set for myself because of my own experience. Anytime I don’t stick to this limit, the aftermath is a version of myself that isn’t really myself at all; it's destructive and the opposite of what it looks like to be holy. I know of some families who will not watch any movies with suggestive scenes due to struggles with pornography. This is a guardrail that protects them from a slippery slope of temptation. Guardrails are actually incredibly helpful when they come from a place of understanding that they are there to protect us and to make us holy.

So if these guardrails help us, why not move to a secluded area and put guardrails up that keep us far, far away from any danger if these lead to holiness for you and your family?

The Dangers of Isolation

Because when you build your entire life far away from the cliff without ever teaching your children what the actual cliff is, dangerous things tend to happen:

1. You Mistake Distance for Holiness

Holiness isn’t simply “staying far away from bad things.” Holiness is being set apart unto God. If we move to a secluded place and adopt extreme rules, thinking the rules themselves make us holy, we’ve replaced heart transformation with behavior control.

2. Your Children May Never Actually Learn Discernment

A life spent behind man-made fences can keep people obedient only as long as the fences remain intact. But if they’re never taught why something is dangerous or where God actually draws the line, they grow up guessing. One day, they step past the man-made line and see no immediate consequence, and they may assume all lines are arbitrary.

Legalistic Isolation Doesn’t Produce Stronger Faith

It often produces spiritual naivety or rebellion. When rules are made stricter than Scripture and treated as equal to God’s Word, people eventually see the inconsistency and either:

• Reject the man-made rules and accidentally reject God’s actual commands.

• Become proud and judgmental because they keep rules that others don’t follow.

• Rebel entirely when they taste freedom without understanding danger.

  
  

Jesus’ Model Was Not Isolation

It was a faithful presence. Jesus did not take His disciples to a monastery or desert for their whole lives to avoid sin. He brought them near to truth, taught them discernment, and then sent them into the world (not of it) as salt and light (John 17:15-18).

Guardrails Are Meant to Guide Us, Not Imprison Us

True wisdom-based guardrails should help us walk closer with Christ, not hide us from the world in fear. The goal is not to live as far from people, culture, or decisions as possible, but to live intentionally and discerningly by the Holy Spirit.