The weak women in Ephesus had a bad habit of tolerating intruders. Some didn’t recognize them as intruders; others didn’t think that they were a problem or that they posed any kind of threat. If we want to be strong, and not weak as they were, we need to take the threat of creeps…
Healing: Learning to Bond
Healing: Learning to Bond Having good emotional connections is as natural as a plant taking in water. But we are not plants living in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, we require some serious gardening in order to bear fruit. The fig tree gardener planned to “dig around and fertilize” the tree that wasn’t bearing any…
Practicing Boundaries: Love vs Enabling
Practicing Boundaries: Love vs Enabling We all want to care and help those in need. But how do you know when you are being loving with someone, or are actually enabling them? When you are faced with a request for your time, energy or money, how do you know if the right response is to…
Boundaries: Guard Your Heart
We were created to be who God designed us to be, to love who God calls us to love, and to accomplish what God tasks us to accomplish. That is the secret to a fruitful and fulfilled life, with great relationships and a deep sense of purpose. Unfortunately, we all encounter obstacles which can distract,…
Establishing Boundaries With Yourself
Learning to be mature in self-boundaries is not easy. Many obstacles hinder our progress; however, God desires our maturity and self-control even more than we do. He’s on our team as an exhorter, encourager, and implorer (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12). One way to begin developing limits on out-of-control behavior is to apply a boundary checklist: 1. What are the symptoms?…
How to Set Boundaries at Work
Christians often have a warped way of looking at work. Unless someone is working “in the ministry,” they see his work as secular. However, this view of work distorts the biblical picture. All of us — not only full-time ministers — have gifts and talents that we contribute to humanity. We all have a vocation,…
Respecting God’s Boundaries
God expects His boundaries to be respected. When He makes choices, or says no to us, that is His right, His freedom. If we are to have a real relationship with Him, we need to respect that freedom. When we try and put Him into binds where He “has to do something,” we are testing…
The Prayer of Release Brings Freedom from Blaming God
My husband and I have a friend who is gifted in many ways, but he has shut God out of his life, blaming Him for a car accident in which his sister was killed and he was injured severely enough to end his promising sports career. Years after that accident, he still bitterly questions why…
The Law of Reaping and Sowing
The law of cause and effect is a basic law of life. The Bible calls it the Law of Sowing and Reaping. You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the…
Quit Dying to the Wrong Things
A “Good, Loving Christian”? In my early Christian experience, I learned that a “good and loving Christian” embodied certain qualities. These messages were modeled and encouraged by the Christian subculture in which I was being formed spiritually. I wanted to be a good, loving Christian no matter the cost. And I mistakenly believed that good,…
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