You're Not the Boss of Me!

Suggested Reading: James 4:7-12

One of the struggles parents can face is teaching their children about the different roles that must be played in life. Children understand this concept of differing roles instinctively but do not always know where the boundaries for those roles lay or when they should play those roles. So they sometimes do things that they shouldn't be doing in their role as children. This fuzzy understanding is where the phrase "you're not the boss of me!" comes from. Children understand the role of the boss in theory, but one of the children has either decided to be the boss or is doing things that should be reserved for a person in authority, like setting down rules or issuing commands. Variations include, "You're not my father!" and "Who made you king?" These phrases are all indications of either a disagreement about the boundaries of a role or whether someone should actually be playing that role.

James points out one area where Christians tend to get in trouble for playing a role that doesn't belong to us. James writes, Don't criticize one another, brothers. He who criticizes or judges his brother criticizes the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? (James 4:11-12, HCSB). James points out that judging someone - or even criticizing them - is to take on a role that doesn't belong to us: Lawgiver and Judge, a role that belongs only to God. In the following chapter, however, James encourages his readers to turn back those who have strayed. How can we do this without judging or criticizing? We make sure we are playing the proper role.

There is only one Lawgiver and Judge. We are not to play either of those roles. We can, however, play the role of fellow children, trying to keep each other out of trouble.  We can go to people, not in judgment, but because we love them and don't want them to get hurt. Those two approaches are very different. One places you in a position of authority over the other person, and is likely to make them respond, "You're not the boss of me!" The other places you in a position alongside the other, where no one is making demands and where they have the option of listening to you or not. One position comes from a misplaced feeling of self-importance and the other flows out of loving concern for a fellow child of the Father.  We have no place playing lawgiver or judge, criticizing people and pointing out faults. We can, however, love people enough to try to help them stay out of trouble.

Who have you criticized lately? How can you play the role of a fellow child rather than judge and lawgiver?

The Time-Dilation Effects of Sin

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 5:1-14

While Gene Roddenberry is best known for creating Star Trek, he was also involved in another science fiction series called Andromeda. The premise of Andromeda was that during the last battle of a great intergalactic republic against its enemies, the last battleship from that republic got caught in the time dilation effect of a black hole, emerging hundreds of years later when the republic was nothing but a memory. The ship never actually got sucked into the black hole, it was just too close to the black hole and had to deal with the consequences of being too close.

In a similar fashion, the author of Proverbs understood that a person doesn't actually have to get caught in sin to suffer for it. Speaking about avoiding the immoral woman, the author warned, Stay away from her! Don’t go near the door of her house! If you do, you will lose your honor and will lose to merciless people all you have achieved (Proverbs 5:8-9, NLT).  Notice, the author didn't say, "Don't go inside her house or you will suffer." He said, don't go near the door or you will suffer. Think about that for a moment. I'm sure my wife would be glad I didn't go into the immoral woman's house, but wouldn't she still be hurt that I went to her door?

Sin may very well be about crossings lines we should never cross, but most of the time we don't suddenly appear on the other side of that line. We slowly wander towards it. And just like straying near a black hole has consequences, even if you never get caught completely,  straying too close to sin bears consequences as well.  We can betray a spouse's trust without ever crossing the "line" of infidelity. We can deceive without ever actually lying. We can harm someone's faith by looking like we're doing something wrong, even if we never technically do anything wrong.

We should never be concerned about not crossing the line. We should be concerned with maintaining our purity and integrity, which means staying as far from the line as possible. If it looks bad, if someone would misunderstand if they saw us and be hurt by it, if it would detract from building the kingdom, even if it isn't technically wrong, we should stay away from it. Don't just stay outside the house of sin. Don't go near the door.

Changing Terminal Boundaries Into Mile-Markers

Suggested Reading: John 11:1-7, 17-27 (unabridged John 11:1-27)

When I was a kid, I used to love to ride my bike up and down the block we lived on. Each year as I grew older, I was allowed to travel farther and farther away from our house in each direction. At first, I was only allowed to ride two doors down in either direction. That eventually expanded to as much of the street as was visible from our house (our street was slightly curved). But by the time I got my driver's license those former boundaries were simply mile-markers along a much longer journey.

John chapter 11 tells a story that reminds us that our boundaries are simply mile-markers for God. Lazarus is sick and his sisters, Mary and Martha, send for Jesus so that Lazarus can be healed. But Jesus delays. From the beginning, Jesus' plan is to allow Lazarus to die so that he can demonstrate God's power over death itself.  So Jesus tells his disciples in verse 4, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death." (NLT)

Now, I'm pretty sure Jesus' disciples assumed that Jesus meant to heal him so that Lazarus never died. For the disciples, like most of us, death was a boundary that couldn't be moved. Death was the end of the line, a place from which it was impossible to return. But Jesus wanted the disciples to understand that the boundaries we set for ourselves are only mile-markers for God. Death is not final. So he allowed Lazarus to die so that he could raise Lazarus from the dead and prove, once and for all, that no boundary limits our journey when God is involved.

What final boundaries have you been facing lately? Perhaps it is the death of a career or a relationship. Perhaps the death of a dream or a marriage. Perhaps you find yourself before a barrier which it seems impossible to cross and you feel your hopes fading to nothingness. Whatever barrier you may be facing today, God wants you to know that barrier is only  a mile-marker when you factor God into the equation. No death is final. No brick wall is impassible. No chasm is  unbridgeable. If you are willing to trust God, those boundaries can become nothing more than mile-markers along the way.

When you face those boundaries, you will probably experience pain and loss. You will probably feel like you've reached the end of the road. And it is to you that Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-27, NLT)