How do we honor people, often the people we love, and recognize there needs to be boundaries?

What if you’re the person who has the boundary set for you not to cross and you want that boundary to go away?

“Good Boundaries and Goodbyes”

-Lysa Terkheurst

Boundaries are not walls to keep people out; they are fences that help define responsibility, identity, and stewardship.

Boundaries Protect What God Created

Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. 

Guarding your heart is not selfish; it’s stewardship of God’s creation!

Boundaries Reflect God’s Design

Job 38:

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment  and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?

Genesis 3:

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Access

Responsibility

Consequences

Clear boundaries define responsibility and allow choice. They remove chaos!

Boundaries Honor Other’s Choice

Romans 12:18 

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Honoring others means respecting their “yes” and their “no,” just as we want them to respect ours.

Lie: Boundaries are not showing love.

Galatians 6:

2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5 for each one should carry their own load.

Lie: Boundaries are not showing love.

Truth: Boundaries do not destroy love; they protect it.

Lie: Boundaries can never change

Ephesians 4:15 – “Speak the truth in love.”

Galatians 1:10

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Lie: Boundaries can never change

Truth: Consistency rebuilds Confidence

Boundaries are part of Honoring God and Honoring People!