Forgiveness With Sacred Boundaries
Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
Matthew 10:16 (NIV)
One of the most misunderstood aspects of forgiveness is this assumption: Forgiveness means unlimited access. The trap that can be laid for you is to think forgiveness has no boundaries.
Forgiveness addresses the internal emotional landscape, but wisdom governs future interaction. When you mete out forgiveness without boundaries, it invites repeats that chip away at you over time. Forgiveness does not mean abandoning discernment.
You are spiritually responsible for stewarding your heart. Some people may retain access to your presence but not to your inner world. They may be welcome into your fellowshipping space, but not into your internal feeling space.
Jesus modeled this. Judas had access to Jesus’s inner circle until Satan entered his heart, and then Jesus told him, “Go and do what you are going to do.” Access changed. Forgiveness remained.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending you weren’t hurt. It is seeing the hurt, acknowledging it, and deciding not to allow it to be the last word in the relationship. Growth allows you to forgive without surrendering sacred space.
Forgiveness releases. Boundaries protect. Both are necessary for a healed and holy life.
When God Works in Inverted Fashion
God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.
1 Corinthians 1:25 (NIV)
Jesus shatters every conventional messianic expectation. He came not as a warrior king, but as a servant. Not with shield and sword, but with basin and towel. Not to the palace, but to a manger.
This is the revelation the disciples struggled to grasp, and sometimes we do too: God often works in an inverted fashion. What we call strength, God reveals as weakness. What we dismiss as weakness, God employs as strength. In this kingdom, leaders wash feet. The poor are called blessed. Victory comes through surrender. Life springs forth from death.
Jesus demonstrates power not through domination, but by surrender. He conquers not by taking life, but by giving His own. His crown is made of thorns and His throne is a cross.
Like the disciples, we want instant liberation from oppression. Instead, Jesus brings freedom from the tyranny of sin. We want revolution in the streets. He came to bring transformation to the heart. We wish for Him to overthrow bad governments. He came to overthrow death itself.
This inversion is not clever reversal. It is a fundamental reordering of reality according to heaven’s perspective. What appears foolish to the world contains the very wisdom of God.
What God Is Doing Underground
Trust in the Lord with all your heart…
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
One of the greatest mistakes in our spiritual lives is measuring God only by what can be seen. When there is no visible evidence, we assume nothing is happening. But that’s not true.
Some of God’s best work is not done above ground. It happens underneath the surface. Seeds grow where eyes cannot see. Water flows underground long before anything breaks the soil.
When Mary stood at the tomb, assuming defeat, she didn’t realize that the resurrection was already in motion. Faith fails only when it demands visible proof before trusting God.
You can be paralyzed if you keep looking for evidence of God above the ground. But God is often forming peace beneath chaos, strength beneath sorrow, joy beneath grief.
This is why faith must endure. Not naive optimism, but defiant persistence. Even when grief presses hard, do not let it leave without bestowing God’s gifts on you. God uses grief to move us, mature us, and deepen us.
What you cannot see may be the strongest work God is doing. And what feels like stillness may be preparation.
Hold It Lightly
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Matthew 6:19–20 (NIV)
Jesus teaches an extended sermon on a hillside overlooking Galilee, delivering weighty truths, including this: One of the biggest traps in life is for us to be ensnared by attachments.
We can cling so tightly to possessions, achievements, and even people that they become heavy chains around the neck that bind us to endless suffering. Jesus knows exactly who He is speaking to: people whose wealth was stored in garments, metals, or grain. But textiles are vulnerable to moths, metals are susceptible to rust and corrosion, and grain is subject to theft.
Jesus’s message is clear: Don’t become too attached to these things. Valuable though they may be, you can’t build your treasure with them. Anything you have to bury, hide, or protect with anxiety is too fragile to sustain your soul. “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Written in the present imperative, it carries this meaning: “I know you are already doing it.”
Then comes the invitation that frees the heart: “Store up treasure in heaven where there can be no theft, no rust, no corrosion.” This treasure accumulates wealth in the heart, the mind, and the soul.
Child of God, your material losses don’t have to be your spiritual losses. Jesus is calling you to resist the pull of a possession-crazed culture and instead model a new ethic, a new law that is evangelistic to those needing to know that the Lord can help break unhealthy attachments.
Here is the truth that reaches into our everyday lives: Don’t be attached to anything that becomes more valuable to you than your relationship with Jesus. Some things you have to hold lightly.
Living as a Resident Alien
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Following Jesus will always place your life in tension with the world around you. That tension is not a mistake; it is part of your calling. Countercultural living with and for God creates a different set of allegiances, alternative values, transformed perspectives, deliberate practices, ethical distinctiveness, and prophetic witness.
In other words, salvation rewrites your citizenship. Peter essentially calls believers “resident aliens.” We are in this world, but we are no longer of this world. You still move through earthly systems, neighborhoods, and workplaces, but something in you no longer belongs to the environment you occupy.
Every place you show up, you see things differently. You hear things differently. You interpret things differently. You encounter things differently. You react to things differently. Why? Because your mind has been renewed, your values reshaped, your heart reoriented toward the kingdom.
And when that happens, your presence becomes a witness. “Sanctified” is when you’ve become so countercultural that when you walk into a room, it creates holy ground. If no one feels that shift when you enter the room, it might not be because of how toxic they are but because of how spiritually anemic you are. A sanctified life should create conviction in the spaces it touches—not by force, but by presence.
That is the essence of countercultural discipleship. You once blended into the crowd; now, even if you wanted to, you can’t talk like you used to, you don’t go where you used to, and what you used to think was fun isn’t fun anymore. That change is the evidence of the Spirit at work.
So the invitation today is simple and challenging: embrace your difference. Trust your counterculturalism. Don’t apologize for God’s impact on your life. Don’t shrink back so others remain comfortable. You were not saved to assimilate; you were saved to illuminate.
