All The Feels, Part 3

To be human is to be limited. By limits, we are talking about the liabilities and weaknesses that come with our physical bodies, stage of life, gifts and talents, and much more. And when it comes to limits, our emotions can help us identify and calibrate our lives around our God-given limits.

You Are Life

Hillsong Worship

Jesus Over Everything

The Belonging Co.

Homecoming

Bethel Music

Death Was Arrested

North Point Worship

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Genesis 2:16-17

“And the LORD God took the human and set him down in the garden of Eden to till it and watch it. And the LORD God commanded the human, saying, ‘From every tree of the garden you may surely eat. But from the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, for on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die.’”

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Genesis 3:1-7

“Now the serpent was most cunning of all the beasts of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God say you shall not surely eat from any tree of the garden?” And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the garden’s trees we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden God has said, “You shall not eat from it and you shall not touch it, lest you die.’” And the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not be doomed to die. For God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will become as gods knowing good and evil.” And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and that it was lust to the eyes and the tree was lovely to look at, and she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave to her man with her, and he ate. And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves loincloths.”

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Paul David Tripp

“Everyone and everything has been designed by God with limits, and it never works, never results in anything good, to attempt to live, minister, and lead outside the boundaries of the limits God has set…You are not just a package of strengths, gifts, and experiences,” he writes, “you are also a collection of weaknesses and susceptibilities…Our limits and weaknesses are not in the way of what God can do through us, but our denial of limits and our delusions of independent strength are.”

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We are all limited, but we are not all limited in the same ways.

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How do I discover my limits? Emotions.

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Our emotions often help us identify and calibrate our lives around our God-given limits.

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Pete Scazzero

“There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality.”

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2 Corinthians 12:4

This person was snatched up to paradise, and heard…

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2 Corinthians 12:4-5

…words you can’t pronounce, which humans aren’t allowed to repeat. I will boast of Someone like that, but I won’t boast of myself, except of my weaknesses.”

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2 Corinthians 12:6

But I’m holding back, so that nobody will think anything of me except what they can see in me or hear from me, even considering how remarkable the revelations were.

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2 Corinthians 12:7-9

As a result, so that I wouldn’t become too exalted, a thorn was given to me in my flesh, a messenger from the satan, to keep stabbing away at me. I prayed to the Lord three times about this, asking that it would be taken away from me, and this is what he said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness.” So I will be all the more pleased to boast of my weaknesses, so that the Messiah’s power may rest upon me.

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2 Corinthians 12:8

“I prayed to the Lord three times about this, asking that it would be taken away from me”

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Matthew 26:42

“My Father, if it’s not possible for this to pass unless I drink it, let your will be done.”

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2 Corinthians 12:10

“So I’m delighted when I’m weak, insulted, in difficulties, persecuted, and facing disasters, for the Messiah’s sake. When I am weak, you see, then I am strong.”

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In awareness there is the possibility of acceptance.

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Honor Your Limitations

• Prioritize self-care.
• Establish healthy boundaries.
• Protect your boundaries by setting limits on people.
• Police your boundaries by saying ‘no.’
• Distinguish between limits to embrace and limits to ignore.

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“Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend