You Need To Transcend Man-Made Religious Boundaries

Are you trying to build electric fences to protect Jesus’s sheep when He didn’t ask you to?

Lately, my thoughts have been wandering through the winding paths of faith, brushing up against the paradoxical edges in Scripture that defy our neatly packaged beliefs.

Imagine a world where theology is not just about crossing theological ‘T’s and dotting ‘I’s, but encountering stories in the Bible that leave us puzzled, challenging our carefully constructed views.

Have you ever felt the shock of an “electric fence” in your spiritual walk, guiding you back to the well-trodden path, making you wonder who set it up and why?

It’s in these moments of wrestling with divine mysteries and questioning the man-made boundaries we’ve erected around our faith, that we find the most profound invitation — not into rebellion, but into a deeper communion.

What if the key to untangling these complexities isn’t in more rigid structures, but in gazing deeper into the fire in Jesus’s eyes, letting the unforced rhythms of grace guide us?

What if the very essence of belief is not found in the restrictions we place on ourselves and others, but in the boundless, embracing love of the Divine?

Hear me out!

Have you ever wondered why the Pharisees accused Christ of being a glutton and a drunkard when He walked the earth? It’s not that Jesus actually was either of those things, but He obviously was doing something so much that the religious establishment of the day could look at His life and ministry and assume to take up these accusations against Him.

In order to be falsely accused, you have to be doing something worthy of accusation, after all. He was a friend of sinners and tax collectors. He wined and dined with those whom the religious folk of the day would have nothing to do with.

Why Didn’t God put an electric fence around the tree in the garden of Eden?

Does it bother you that in the first few chapters of Genesis, the Lord told Adam and Eve not to eat of a tree that He Himself PUT there in the middle of the Garden of Eden?

Like, seriously; how come God would put it there in the first place and not build an electric fence to stop them from going near it?

Or if you’re a devout believer who thinks Christians should abstain from all forms of alcohol, does it bother you that Jesus’s first public miracle was to make wine for believers who were already drunk? Does it bother you that He would make something that can be abused, and has been, for the people who were already well under the influence of it? In order for them to run out of wine at the wedding, that means — GASP! — they were drinking wine!

I know, right?! Put that one in your Bible and read it!

Just as an electric fence restricts physical movement, what ‘fences’ do we construct that limit our spiritual freedom and growth?

Does God Need Your Help?

An electric fence is a barrier that uses electric shock to deter animals or people from crossing a boundary. The voltage of the shock may have effects ranging from uncomfortable, to painful or even lethal.

We, much like well-meaning guardians of faith, erect barriers—some made of fear, others of shame—to protect and to define the sacred, perhaps going beyond what was divinely intended. The tale of Eve’s added commandment not to touch the fruit exemplifies human nature’s inclination to build fences where none were necessarily meant to be.

Even if the Holy Spirit didn’t “say that”.

The serpent asked Eve about the tree in the middle of the Garden, and she added to it the idea they were to not even touch it, when God didn’t actually say that.

Venturing further into this exploration, ponder the nature of divine commands juxtaposed with human interpretations. Consider how Jesus’s first public miracle involved turning water into wine at a wedding full of guests who had already indulged. Does this divine act align more closely with the spirit of freedom or of restriction?

Too often, we find ourselves, like the Pharisees, adding extra layers to divine instructions, creating regulations that reflect our preferences rather than God’s intentions.

There are a lot of things in contemporary Christianity God didn’t and still doesn’t say, but we have thought He needs our help, so we’ve erected electric fences to stop others from crossing boundaries we might not go past. When you live in another culture than your own, such as I do living in South America, you get confronted with the fences your culture has constructed — whether that’s a national culture or a Church culture, or both.

Living cross-culturally, you are confronted with things which are a part of the Gospel universally versus things which are really just the electric fences you or someone else has erected or had built by others around you.

Does Revival or the “Manifest Presence of God” Fix People?

I once had an e-mail exchange with a friend who I assume would not like me to use his name, for various reasons that will be obvious as you read the following quote. In passing, he made this remark about how people tend to get into rules and regulations when the Spirit of God is not among them — especially if they have previously experienced “revival”;

Once the phenomenon is over, and souls begin to join a work who never experienced the revival, the rules not only become burdensome, but more rules are added in an attempt to re-create the holy environment that might be more conducive to a renewed renewal or “fresh wave”. So the pattern goes from repentance to revival to rules to legalism to elitism to judgementalism to ostracization to isolation. You can see this pattern having formed in the time immediately following the Cane Ridge Revival in the early 1800s, and many of the offshoots from the Azusa Street Revival. That was certainly the direction I took in the years after leaving [the Pensacola revival…]

…I’ve heard horror stories, some very humorous, of fellow grads who went to work for other churches and attempted to implement these extra-biblical revival-era constraints on their youth groups or congregations, resulting in confusion and division more than in deep inworking and outworking of Biblical holiness.

Living in the Spirit: Beyond the Boundaries

The true antidote to our tendency to box in the divine with human-made fences? A deeper, more authentic encounter with the Holy Spirit.

History and scripture teach us that revival, transformation, and true holiness don’t come from adhering to a rigid set of rules, but from an intimate relationship with God.

As we learn to distinguish between conviction and preference, inspired by wisdom from Romans 14 and First Corinthians 9, we find that real transformation occurs not through external compliance, but through internal renewal prompted by the Spirit.

Concluding Thoughts

Since the Holy Spirit is the One who guides us and will guide us into all truth (John 16:13), then I think we don’t need to build fences and tell people to “Keep Out!”, but encourage them into a deepening encounter with God Himself. The closer we get to Him and look into Jesus’s Eyes of Fire, we’ll become more like Him, and the things of this world will burn and drop from us.

Maybe the electric fence mentality is symptomatic of a lack of actual relationship, both in terms of with one another in community, but also in teaching people — especially maybe when people are newer believers — how to relate to the Holy Spirit for themselves.

Admittedly, it’s easier to create rules and expect conformity much more than it is to let the chips fall where they may and deal with messes that may come up — but that’s what happens in real relationships!

Paul had a lot to say about this kind of stuff, and it wasn’t always pleasant. So, based on Romans 14 and First Corinthians 9, what is the difference between a conviction and a preference?

How do we respond when someone’s puking on us for not living holy enough for their standard? Or vice versa — when we think the other person is in compromise and needs a kick in the pants?

Our fences and boundaries, though well-intentioned as they are, are just man-made attempts to try to coerce each other by law-code. If we’re helping people connect to Christ Himself, or are in relationship and encouraging each other and not JUST holding each other ‘accountable’, then these types of rules and regulations are unnecessary.

Let the Holy Spirit guide you and be free in Christ.