Boundaries

1 Thessalonians 1:4, " We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be His own people. For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. ...(2:4) Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts."

For the past couple of days I have had a reoccurring theme, it is boundaries. I have heard people speaking about boundaries and seen it on my emails. It is appearing everywhere! When God speaks to me in this way, I must take notice. We have been dealing with boundaries in our house. You see we have two precious college girls living with us. God brought these girls into our lives and so they now rent a bedroom from us. They live with us, eat with us and visit with us. They are part of our extended family, for they have become part of our family by living here. But we have been dealing with boundaries.

Our first concern, and what is most important to us is our immediate family, we have two young boys living here as well. Our first concern is for them, and because of this we have to have boundaries with the girls. We have to have a boundary with drinking in our house, they cannot, we have too much to loose. We must have a boundary on curfew, for we must get up early to take care of our family and if we are woken up after 1 a.m. it is too hard to get a good sleep after that. We must have boundaries, we must. The hard part is that I need the boundaries for myself as well. It would be so easy for me to set aside everything else and just concentrate on the girls, but I cannot. I must back off and let God do the work that He does, and for me to do the work that He has called me to do, and that is to provide a house.

(4:11) "Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others." I must remember that I am not their savior. No matter how badly my heart breaks for them, they are not really my responsibility. I am not their mother, or their god. This is a very hard boundary for me. So while these girls may be thinking that we are putting too many rules on them, it is not just them, I am also learning about boundaries myself. (5:6) " So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out His anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when He returns, we can live with Him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing."

Oswald Chambers, "What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is— has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above— you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved." God is the one doing the saving, not me. God is working, I can see it. What has He called me to do? What is He telling me is my responsibility? What are the boundaries that I must make and am I keeping them. Everyone has boundaries that they must live by. What are yours?

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/11/12/devotion.aspx?year=2009