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The difference between legalism and holiness is where your heart it. The religious leaders of Jesus time had taken the Law and made it all about the letter and not the Spirit behind it. It became all about what you did and it had nothing to do with one’s heart. What did God care about? The heart. “The heart is desperately wicked above all thing, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” God gave His law, not just to give us a list of do’s and don’t-do’s, but to show us our need for Him. Jesus is trying to communicate that it isn’t just the act of murder that is the problem, it’s the heart behind it. If it’s in the heart, whether the action is done or not, the sin is already a done deal. The act of killing itself isn’t an evil thing. (gasp!) After all, “the wages of sin is death.” What was the consequence of disobeying God in the garden? Death. After the flood God said that if one person murders another, that murder should be executed. So the problem isn’t the killing, it’s the reason, the heart behind it. The same thing is true of sex. Sex isn’t a bad or evil thing. God created it. But sex done with the wrong motives and in the wrong context is evil in God’s eyes. The one occupied with legalism asks, “Is this OK to do?” The one occupied with holiness asks, “Does this honor God?” If it dishonors God, if the action and the heart behind it bring dishonor to God, it’s sin. If the thing doesn’t dishonor God, if the motives are pure and the context of the thing is Biblically appropriate, then praise God with it. Golf, dancing, music, sex, woodworking, car building, art, all of these things are just actions. They can all be done to the glory of God. But if the heart behind them and the context in which they are being done are contrary to God’s ways, it is sin. The next time you find yourself asking, “Is this OK to do?” Try changing the question to, “Does this honor God?”, see what God says, then act accordingly.