psychological traps.
9/12/20261 min read
Perfect Day, Saints!
Grace is deeply scriptural. However, the grace doctrine is not.
A minister based in the USA tried to contend with the grace doctrine of my former church, only to come up short and issue an apology.
His failure wasn't because his theology was wrong. Lacking first-hand experience, he simply failed to diagnose the true depth of the error within the grace doctrine. He critiqued the system from the outside, missing the sophisticated psychological machinery running on the inside.
When outsiders accuse this grace doctrine of giving people a "license to sin," the church’s rebuttal is always the same: “Of course we are against sin; grace teaches you to live right.”
But that is a surface-level defense. It completely misses the deeper psychological trap. The real deception lies in how the mechanics of faith are framed.
When they teach that grace is strictly unmerited favor—and that the exact moment a believer tries to do good, you nullify grace—they paralyze the believer. They create a paradox where a Christian cannot intentionally practice righteousness or actively pursue good works without being accused of falling back "under the law" or bringing a curse upon themselves. Righteousness is therefore reduced to an accidental, passive byproduct.
The other psychological trap embedded in this framework is the total elimination of agency. If God only dispenses grace, and grace is strictly unmerited, then the believer is conditioned to believe they cannot do anything of merit, lest they disqualify themselves from receiving anything from God at all.
Furthermore, when structured teachings on biblical holiness are systematically rejected as "legalism," believers are left without a compass. You lose the functional understanding of why you need to be holy in the first place.
When intentional righteousness is forbidden, personal agency is stripped away, and holiness is untaught, the odds are heavily stacked in favor of sin.
This is not just a theological difference; this is the very definition of deception.
Stay on course in Jesus Christ, amen?
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11 KJV)