263are bad.” It is the state Jesus died for, to put us into a state of “no
condemnation.” Biblically, it is something legal, not emotional.
Scripture teaches that we are to be out from under con-
demnation and that guilt should not be a motivator of our
behavior. We are to be motivated by love, and the resulting
emotion that comes out of love when we fail is “godly sorrow”
(2 Cor. 7:10). This is contrasted with “worldly sorrow,” which is
guilt, and “brings death.”
This guilt comes mainly from how we have been taught in
our early socialization process. Therefore, our guilt feelings are
not inerrant. They can appear when we have not done anything
wrong at all, but have violated some internal standard that we
have been taught. We have to be careful about listening to guilt
feelings to tell us when we are wrong, for often, the guilt feel-
ings themselves are wrong. In addition, guilt feelings are not
good motivators anyway. It is hard to love from a condemned
place. We need to feel not condemned, so that we can feel
“godly sorrow” that looks at the hurt we have caused someone
else, instead of how “bad” we are. Guilt distorts reality, gets us
away from the truth, and away from doing what is best for the
other person.
This is particularly true when it comes to boundaries. We
have seen over and over in this book how the Bible tells us to
have good boundaries, to enforce consequences, to set limits, to
grow up and separate from families of origin, and to say no.
When we do these things, we are doing right. These boundaries
are loving actions to take. Even though they are painful, they are
helpful to others.
But our fallen consciences can tell us that we are bad or
doing something mean when we set boundaries. The people
with whom we are setting boundaries will often say things to
reinforce our guilty consciences. If you have been raised in a
family that said implicitly or explicitly that your boundaries are
bad, you know what I am talking about. When you say no to a
request, you feel guilty. When you do not allow someone to take
advantage of you, you feel guilty. When you separate from the
family to create a life of your own, you feel guilty. If you do not
Resistance to Boundaries