In the last blog I left you with John 15:3-5 which says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
In order for us to understand boundaries and the importance of staying within them, we have to understand this verse. When I think about a vine and its branches I think about the importance of the branch being connected to the vine in order for it to grow. If you cut the branch off it is impossible for it to continue growing. This understanding enabled me to redefine boundaries and to embrace them as a life giving nutrient that will cause me to grow and to live an abundant, fruit filled life, in all of my relationships!
Here is something I want you to understand before we go any further. When God formed you in your mother’s womb, He loved every part of you. He loved the good, the bad, and the ugly! He chose to love you knowing that you would walk in sin, hurt yourself and others, and knowing you would cross His boundaries of protection. His knowing these things did not cause him falter in His love for you. In fact, his knowledge of these things caused Him to pursue you even more. Your inability to live in relationship with God and man on your own was the reason He sent Christ to die on the Cross for you. It is also the reason He set boundaries of protection in place along the road of your life.
When I used to travel across country I traveled many windy mountain roads. Along those roads were guard rails. Those guard rails were placed there so that I would not go over the edge of the mountain. There were also speed limit signs along the road that told me the safe speed to travel for that section of road. Not one time when I traveled those roads did I question the validity of those guard rails or road signs. I accepted the reality that the road engineers did their homework. They calculated the safe guards that needed to be in place, to ensure my safety when I traveled those roads. Staying within those boundaries never seemed to be an issue for me.
When I started to investigate God’s boundaries I brought these experiences to mind because they gave me a new way of seeing God’s boundaries of protection for my life. I began to understand Proverbs 3:5,6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” I also began to understand Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
I began to see God as the engineer of the roads in my life. I began to reframe my past and asked God to show me the truth about the importance of staying within His boundaries. I asked Him to help me trust in Him the same way I trusted the men who created the guard rails and speed limit signs. This is when my vision of God’s boundaries became clear. This is when I started to realize that living by the principles of God’s Word instead of trying to keep the Law of His Word was my responsibility. If I allowed Christ to be the Lord of my life, then I would be able to stay within God’s boundaries. And if I crossed a boundary for whatever reason, God had a rescue team in place with a perfect plan of rescue for me! The rescue team consists of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and the body of Christ. The rescue plan consists of God’s grace, mercy, truth, and deliverance. This understanding was liberating! It freed me from all of the shame and condemnation. Whenever I crossed a boundary it allowed me to see the opportunity to overcome and be victorious no matter what I did wrong.
In my relationships with people I began to see the importance of having boundaries. I made a list of the toxic and healthy people in my life. From those lists I began to weed out the people who were on the toxic side and I started cultivating the relationships with the healthy people. I began to look for people who would enhance my life by speaking truth, encouraging me, and loving me the way God loved me, warts and all. Today I am surrounded by people who I am grateful to have in my life.
In the area of choices I began to see toxic and healthy choices. I made a list of those as well. Instead of seeing the boundaries of God as inhibiting me from fun, I began to see them as protecting me from possible disaster. This is when I stopped drinking alcohol to get drunk. I have to admit that I used to love getting drunk! I loved the feeling and my mood when I was drunk. I did think that getting drunk displeased God and I somehow thought that He would punish me if I did it, but again, I had a skewed view of God and I didn’t understand why I shouldn’t drink for the purpose of getting drunk.
After reframing God’s boundaries in my mind, I realized that God wasn’t sitting on His throne watching me get drunk and setting up a team of disciplinarians to come down and punish me for my sin. I realized that my view of God was completely different than the truth about Him. I reframed the scenario in my mind first about the event of getting drunk and how God viewed me when I did. Here is how I did that.
I began to envision God sitting on His throne having a meeting with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They were brain storming on a plan of redemption for my sinful behavior. (For those of you who have a problem with me separating the Godhead for this, don’t let your mind go there. None of us will really know the truth about it until we get to Heaven so there is no need arguing over it on earth. Whatever you believe, believe it wholeheartedly, and walk in the power of your belief.) This is how I viewed it and that view delivered me from a dark lifestyle and produced the lasting fruit of the Holy Spirit operating in my life!
This is the picture I got of God. I saw Him having that meeting and I could almost hear Him saying something like this, “Okay, my precious and beautiful daughter Holly has crossed a boundary and this may cause her great harm. I need you to be in place at the exact moment when she will be in a quiet place so I can talk to her through you. When she gets there and is ready to listen I want you to tell her how much I love her and tell her that I have forgiven her through your blood at Calvary. Remind her that nothing she can do can separate her from my love. Tell her that my grace has been set in place for her and that when she wakes up in the morning my mercies will be new for her. Then I want you to bring a person or event in her life that will remind her of her worth and value to me. I want my people to go to her and help her get restored and healed from her false beliefs about me. Put angels of protection around her so the enemy can’t hit her with his fiery darts of shame and condemnation about her behavior. Alright its time! Go!”
I know that may seem like an odd thought to some of you but I believe that God communicates to us in this way because the Word says the Holy Spirit convicts the believer of their righteousness. God is constantly reminding us of our righteousness through Christ Jesus. I just believe we choose to listen to the enemy’s voice more than we listen to God’s and that is why it is so hard for many people to walk inside of the boundaries of God.
Here’s what God knew to be true about me getting drunk. God foreknew that getting drunk caused me to act in ways that would hurt me or others. He knew that it could cause me to die or cause me to drive drunk and kill another person. He knew alcohol caused me to gain weight and gave me bad headaches the day after I drank. He knew that when I got drunk I tended to put myself in risky situations that oftentimes I felt powerless to get out of. In His knowing, He loved me and pursued me anyway! He knew that one day my reality would catch up with His truth and I would gain wisdom and understanding about His boundaries in the area of drinking because He knew my heart. He never looked at the outside of my life. He only looked within. So He knew it was just a matter of time before I had a desire to live within His boundaries. He was right! When the day came when I gave my life completely over to Him in all areas, the desire to get drunk went away.
God knows every boundary that needs to be in place to ensure that we get to the destination of the desires of our hearts. Begin today and ask God to help you reframe his boundaries in your mind. He is faithful and He promises that when you seek Him you will find Him, when you seek Him with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13. Seek wisdom and understanding and you will begin to see understand God’s boundaries!
Monday, March 23, 2009
No God, No Understanding of Boundaries! Know God, Know Understanding of Boundaries! Part One
As a child I didn't like boundaries. Boundaries to me were limits put on me to keep me from fun, excitement, discovery, and freedom. I thought that my parents, teachers, church, and adults in my life, were holding something from me. I somehow thought they knew something that I didn't and in their cruelty they wanted to keep me from it. For years I fought whenever a boundary was put into place. If a line was drawn, I crossed it! If a door was shut, I opened it. If I was told no, I fought until the answer was yes.
When I got my way I discovered that the thrill of victory was not so sweet. In fact, many times I discovered that the knowledge I gained from crossing over the boundary was a bitter reality that left me feeling lack more than feeling fulfilled! Being young and naive I didn't have the reasoning skills to understand what was taking place, and so I continued to cross every boundary in my life. As an adult I have looked back on my life and figured out where some of my rebellion came from and why I had false beliefs when it came to boundaries.
I was raised in a religion that had strict boundaries and many laws of Holiness that people had to follow in order to be in right standing with God. The sad thing was that I observed many of these people’s lives and found them to be as unhappy, if not more unhappy, than the so called heathens they spoke of. I couldn’t understand how people living outside of God’s boundaries and breaking the religious codes of conduct could be apparently more content, than those who stayed within the boundaries. So to say that I had a lot of confusion when it came to boundaries is an understatement! If God wanted me to live inside of the boundaries of His Word then why were His people so miserable living within them? And if living outside of them was so bad, then why were so many “heathens” apparently happy and prosperous in their unhealthy lifestyles?
Well, instead of seeking wisdom and understanding about this, I decided to keep breaking through the boundaries and here’s why. Even though I loved the people I went to church with, the so called heathens seemed to be more accepting of me than the Christians at the time. When I screwed up in life I was judged for my actions by the church and persecuted for opposing God. But when I screwed up in the world, the so called “heathens” still accepted me and loved me no matter what. They didn’t judge me, even if they didn’t like what I had done. In fact many times they embraced me.
So the confusion of living within boundaries became even more perplexing as time went on. I found myself becoming increasingly angry but didn’t know why. I started to turn my anger towards God as I saw Him as the unrealistic boundary setter and the cause of my pain whenever I got hurt from crossing one. Then at 15 I was so frustrated that I said, “God, if you are anything like your people, I want nothing to do with you.” I had a skewed view of God that left me feeling lonely and in a mental state of hopelessness.
For the next several years I lived outside of the boundaries in every area of my life. I alienated people who lived within them and turned my back on God and his people. When I came to the end of myself and finally had a “Come to Jesus” moment one day, my life changed completely. I had a wrestling match with God and I told Him of my disappointment and frustration. When I was done I felt a peace come over me that I can’t explain. Somehow I knew that my relationship with God would never be the same.
Over the next several years I began to discover the truth about God, not from man, but from opening the Word and studying. I spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to make sense of my confusion. He was faithful and answered my prayers. In the area of boundaries, here is what I discovered in my study time that changed my life.
God has set boundaries in place to protect us not to punish us or keep us from fun and excitement. And when we cross a boundary God doesn’t look down at us and frown. He doesn’t condemn us and separate himself from us either. If we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ God sees us through the blood of Christ, Holy and blameless in His sight no matter what we do. If He saw us any other way He would be a liar because He says that through Christ we have we have been made righteous. Being made righteous means we have right standing with God no matter what.
So if God doesn’t sit and judge us for crossing boundaries what’s wrong with crossing them? The answer can be found in 1 Corinthians 6:12 where Paul writes, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Christ was the only man who could keep the Laws of God and when He died on the Cross He fulfilled the Law. At that moment our relationship with God was no longer dependent on us keeping the Laws of God. Our relationship with God became dependent on us accepting Christ as our Savior and allowing Him to live through us.
A whole new covenant relationship was birthed that day between God and His people. This changed everything! Paul understood this and if you read his writings you will discover the depth of his understanding for yourself. One definition of expedient is: useful, or effecting a desired result. Only God knows the desires of our hearts so He knows what will lead us to them or away from them. With this knowledge He sets boundaries in place to keep us from walking off the path that leads to those desires. If we stay within the boundaries we will end up at our desired destination but if we don’t, we will destroy the path or destroy ourselves along the way.
As a parent sets a boundary out of love for their child, so God sets boundaries for us out of love. If you can begin to view boundaries in this way you will find yourself wanting to stay within them instead of wanting to cross them. You will begin to see living within the boundaries of God as a blessing instead of a curse. You will find yourself embracing the them instead of trying to fight your way out of them. And the only way to live within the boundaries of God is through your relationship with Jesus Christ. You cannot do it on your own and if you try, you will find yourself angry and frustrated just like I did when I was a child.
Before I continue it is important to read John 15:3-5 which says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
To be continued…………………………
When I got my way I discovered that the thrill of victory was not so sweet. In fact, many times I discovered that the knowledge I gained from crossing over the boundary was a bitter reality that left me feeling lack more than feeling fulfilled! Being young and naive I didn't have the reasoning skills to understand what was taking place, and so I continued to cross every boundary in my life. As an adult I have looked back on my life and figured out where some of my rebellion came from and why I had false beliefs when it came to boundaries.
I was raised in a religion that had strict boundaries and many laws of Holiness that people had to follow in order to be in right standing with God. The sad thing was that I observed many of these people’s lives and found them to be as unhappy, if not more unhappy, than the so called heathens they spoke of. I couldn’t understand how people living outside of God’s boundaries and breaking the religious codes of conduct could be apparently more content, than those who stayed within the boundaries. So to say that I had a lot of confusion when it came to boundaries is an understatement! If God wanted me to live inside of the boundaries of His Word then why were His people so miserable living within them? And if living outside of them was so bad, then why were so many “heathens” apparently happy and prosperous in their unhealthy lifestyles?
Well, instead of seeking wisdom and understanding about this, I decided to keep breaking through the boundaries and here’s why. Even though I loved the people I went to church with, the so called heathens seemed to be more accepting of me than the Christians at the time. When I screwed up in life I was judged for my actions by the church and persecuted for opposing God. But when I screwed up in the world, the so called “heathens” still accepted me and loved me no matter what. They didn’t judge me, even if they didn’t like what I had done. In fact many times they embraced me.
So the confusion of living within boundaries became even more perplexing as time went on. I found myself becoming increasingly angry but didn’t know why. I started to turn my anger towards God as I saw Him as the unrealistic boundary setter and the cause of my pain whenever I got hurt from crossing one. Then at 15 I was so frustrated that I said, “God, if you are anything like your people, I want nothing to do with you.” I had a skewed view of God that left me feeling lonely and in a mental state of hopelessness.
For the next several years I lived outside of the boundaries in every area of my life. I alienated people who lived within them and turned my back on God and his people. When I came to the end of myself and finally had a “Come to Jesus” moment one day, my life changed completely. I had a wrestling match with God and I told Him of my disappointment and frustration. When I was done I felt a peace come over me that I can’t explain. Somehow I knew that my relationship with God would never be the same.
Over the next several years I began to discover the truth about God, not from man, but from opening the Word and studying. I spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to make sense of my confusion. He was faithful and answered my prayers. In the area of boundaries, here is what I discovered in my study time that changed my life.
God has set boundaries in place to protect us not to punish us or keep us from fun and excitement. And when we cross a boundary God doesn’t look down at us and frown. He doesn’t condemn us and separate himself from us either. If we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ God sees us through the blood of Christ, Holy and blameless in His sight no matter what we do. If He saw us any other way He would be a liar because He says that through Christ we have we have been made righteous. Being made righteous means we have right standing with God no matter what.
So if God doesn’t sit and judge us for crossing boundaries what’s wrong with crossing them? The answer can be found in 1 Corinthians 6:12 where Paul writes, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Christ was the only man who could keep the Laws of God and when He died on the Cross He fulfilled the Law. At that moment our relationship with God was no longer dependent on us keeping the Laws of God. Our relationship with God became dependent on us accepting Christ as our Savior and allowing Him to live through us.
A whole new covenant relationship was birthed that day between God and His people. This changed everything! Paul understood this and if you read his writings you will discover the depth of his understanding for yourself. One definition of expedient is: useful, or effecting a desired result. Only God knows the desires of our hearts so He knows what will lead us to them or away from them. With this knowledge He sets boundaries in place to keep us from walking off the path that leads to those desires. If we stay within the boundaries we will end up at our desired destination but if we don’t, we will destroy the path or destroy ourselves along the way.
As a parent sets a boundary out of love for their child, so God sets boundaries for us out of love. If you can begin to view boundaries in this way you will find yourself wanting to stay within them instead of wanting to cross them. You will begin to see living within the boundaries of God as a blessing instead of a curse. You will find yourself embracing the them instead of trying to fight your way out of them. And the only way to live within the boundaries of God is through your relationship with Jesus Christ. You cannot do it on your own and if you try, you will find yourself angry and frustrated just like I did when I was a child.
Before I continue it is important to read John 15:3-5 which says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
To be continued…………………………
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