My Unpopular Opinion on Boundaries and the Secret to Unity (Philippians 2)

It seems that the word “boundaries” has become a buzzword over the last decade both inside and outside the church. Psychologists, counselors, authors, bloggers and podcasters are teaching boundaries and how to have healthy relationships. I have learned a lot and grown as a person as a result of all of this teaching. I have even taught a mentorship course on How to Break Free from the Prison of People Pleasing and inside the course, I talk about the importance of boundaries and how I have had to learn to implement them in my life.

So I do believe boundaries are important …but I have some concerns.

First let me say, boundaries are Biblical and good when the motivation is love. The Bible is full of boundaries both from God to us and us in relation to others.

My concern…and perhaps unpopular opinion is that boundaries have gone too far at times inside the church and as a result they have disrupted the unity God wants for his church.

Join me on today’s video as we take a closer look at Philippians chapter 2 and we talk about boundaries and the secret to true unity inside the church.

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Jesus said in Luke 9:23,

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

I memorized Luke 9:23 in high school and for a long time it was my life verse. I understood that following Christ meant that I must deny myself, put others desires and interests above my own, be a servant, sacrifice for others, be long suffering and forgive when forgiveness was needed.

Then I learned about boundaries and I began to grapple with Jesus’ words to deny myself vs. the teaching of boundaries to not be a doormat. My eyes were opened to the fact that in some ways, my desire to do good to others had gotten taken advantage of. At first, I didn’t know if I really cared. I felt that was on them if they wanted to take advantage of my kindness because I have never seen kindness as a weakness.

But then I realized that this was not completely healthy thinking. You see, there is a fine line between following the Lord and denying ourselves (which is good) and being brave and asserting ourselves when necessary (which is also good). Clearly, we must protect ourselves from evil.

But here is my concern and prayer for the church… I pray that we would use careful discernment when implementing our boundaries INSIDE the church.  We need to be careful that we are not the cause of the disruption of unity – calling it boundaries when really it is our selfish desires and pride getting in the way.

I know this is a hard word and only God knows the motives of our heart. But may we never use boundaries as an excuse to to be bitter, hold a grudge or stonewall a sister in Christ.

Instead, may we find ourselves obeying Philippians 2:5:

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus
⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

God loves you so much!

Keep walking with the King,

Courtney

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