Boundaries

There are baby squirrels living in our gnarly old pear tree out front. We can watch them from the front window cavort and play. They seem to be content to stay in the safety of the tree’s branches. I have yet to see them on the ground. I’m sure they will venture out in the right time, but for now they are content with the boundaries God has given them.

It seems to me during these turbulent times we could use some boundaries.

Current events remind me of this passage:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart (Genesis 6:5-6).

Or this one:

In those days, there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).

Or maybe this one:

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them (Romans 1:28-32).

We don’t have a race problem, friends; we have a sin problem.

We have become a bandwagon society. We like to trumpet our virtue on social media platforms, but does that make any lasting change in our broken world? We must be careful about what we choose to support. Not all causes are based on truth.

Paul wrote the epistle to the Colossians, because the believers there were dealing with false teachers and their heresies. Truth must be fought for – it is easy to be deceived.

As believers we have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to God’s kingdom of light; we have redemption and forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13); we were formerly alienated from God, but through faith in Jesus we have been reconciled and stand before Him holy, blameless, and beyond reproach (Colossians 1:21-22).

You’d think if we have all that going for us, we’d be able to keep a firm grasp on the truth.  Yet Paul devotes most of Colossians 2 to encouraging the people of Colossae to make sure they do not allow themselves to be deceived.

As Winston Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

We are living it in the age of Twitter.

Colossians 3 is devoted to how we ought to live because of all God’s done for us in chapters 1 & 2 – practical application. We discussed verses 1-16 in previous posts - the personal change that is taking place in us as we walk worthy (Colossians 1:10).

Paul wraps up our personal application – the change we must cooperate in within us – with verse 17:

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

It is the ultimate screening process.

To explain sin to children we can say that sin is whatever we think, say, or do that breaks God’s law.

To walk worthy, we must weigh everything we think, say, or do with the Word of God.

This is our boundary.

There are a lot of voices in the air right now. It is a stressful, emotional, and painful time. There are many liars abroad. We must be careful what we listen to, do research and discover what organizations stand for before supporting them, and prayerfully determine how to share Jesus with a hurting, rebellious, and foolish world.

He alone will change hearts.