You might see that there is a kind of dynamic tension when you compare giving and receiving love with setting boundaries. You cannot have relationship and belonging with anyone that you might call love if neither of you holds the other in some degree of reverence and awe; if neither of you establishes and maintains boundaries.
A friend asked me if God holds us in reverence and awe. Does He “fear” us? I was taken aback by the question at first. As I think about it, though, it’s clear to me that He does hold you and me in reverence and awe, as that is part of Love, and as John says, God is Love.
Obviously, God is not afraid of us. But it is He who extends free will to us, He who made a way for us to go back to Him when we have no right of relationship to demand such. And He who extends us His amazing Grace in exchange for our faith in Him.
We’ll continue our discussion about what it means to be loved by Christ in our next blog.
We have works to do and we’re going to need faith to do them!
**(See earlier blogs for more on God’s plan for you or buy the book “From Here …By Faith”)