I was raised in a fundamental religion, a sin-conscious culture where teaching and training revolved around controlling one’s behavior. Freedom wasn’t prized in that setting. To many people, freedom was seen as independence from God, and perceived as an excuse or license to sin, leading to anarchy.

Rather than being discipled in the freedom that Jesus brought us, we were instructed to “behave” We were taught to focus on our “performance” and “adherence” so that God could “trust us” and we could walk with Him properly.

Many religions talk about salvation through grace, but they continue to believe that we continue in God’s good graces through our own efforts and striving “to be good.”

Yes, believers do good works and bear good fruit. But not of ourselves. We do these things because our hearts and minds have been transformed through the Holy Spirit and because Christ and the Father abide within us and we in them. Any real goodness or righteousness we exhibit flows from Heaven through Christ in us. See Isaiah 64:6.