The lack of solid boundaries results in half-completed spiritual lives. Good boundaries help you finish the course. They clarify convictions. They provide moral clarity by assigning healthy, predetermined responses to situations before they arise.They draw lines in the sand that you won’t cross because of your love for Christ and your desire to see His desires actualized in all areas of your life.
Establishing boundaries is a discipline. To this end, Oswald Chambers once commented, ‘Impulse is all right in a child, but it is disastrous in a man. Impulse has to be trained into intuition by discipline.’
The paradox is that the things men tend to resist the most — limits, boundaries, rules, restrictions — are the very things we need the most in order to experience real freedom. This kind of resistance is like trying to jump the fence without realizing that the Grand Canyon waits on the other side. You won’t ever know the terrors you’ve escaped when you find true freedom inside God’s boundaries. But then again, you don’t want to know these terrors.
When you understand that true freedom requires restraints, you’ll see that God doesn’t establish boundaries just to see if you can be good and follow the rules. Instead, He gives you boundaries to keep you and your loved ones safe from moral and spiritual calamity, to make you a faithful husband, dad, and man of God. He put them there to help you experience the truly abundant life Jesus came to give.
New Life Ministries has many print, audio, and video resources available that deal with boundaries. If you’re not already connected to a Sustained Victory group for men who have attended the Every Man’s Battle weekend workshop, if you’d like to find a Christian counselor in your area, or if you’d like to learn more about our other weekend workshops, call us today at 800-639-5433.
