Jesus Had Boundaries

A Guest Article by Christina, Founder of ESSoessence

A Different Voice. The Same Invitation to Come Home.

Every so often, I want to use this platform to share a voice other than my own—especially when that voice is doing work that deeply complements what we are building at Forge The Man.

Christina is my partner in life, but she is also a teacher, facilitator, creator, and the founder of ESSoessence, a movement devoted to helping women rediscover and reconnect with their inner divine essence—the feminine wisdom, power, truth, and aliveness that can become buried beneath years of conditioning, expectation, and self-abandonment.

The name itself speaks to the work: ESS carries a nod to Goddess, esso points inward, and essence is exactly where the journey leads—back to the woman underneath all the roles, expectations, conditioning, and stories she has accumulated.

In many ways, Christina is doing for women what I am doing for men through Forge The Man.

And our work constantly informs one another.

We collaborate. We challenge each other. We bounce ideas back and forth. We inspire each other. We have long conversations about masculinity, femininity, spirituality, relationships, sexuality, healing, boundaries, purpose, and what it actually means to become a more integrated human being.

Sometimes we agree completely.

Sometimes we absolutely do not.

And both make the work better.

So when Christina sent me this piece, Jesus Had Boundaries, I knew I wanted to share it.

Although her work through ESSoessence is primarily devoted to women, the truth inside this article belongs to all of us.

Men need boundaries.

Women need boundaries.

Parents need boundaries. Partners need boundaries. Leaders need boundaries. People of faith need boundaries.

And perhaps most importantly, those of us who were taught that love means endless availability, sacrifice means self-erasure, or being Christlike means having no limits desperately need to reconsider what the life of Jesus actually demonstrates.

This is Christina’s voice and Christina’s work.

I’m honored to share it here.

— Ben Dodge
Founder, Forge The Man

The following article was written by Christina, founder of ESSoessence. While Christina’s work primarily serves women, this version has been lightly adapted for a broader audience because the principles of agency, boundaries, self-respect, and intentional love transcend gender.

Jesus Had Boundaries

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that being like Jesus meant being endlessly available.

Give more. Need less. Forgive faster. Keep the peace. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Turn the other cheek. Carry the burden. Say yes. Stay nice. Endure.

And if it hurts enough, costs enough, or requires enough of you, perhaps the suffering itself is evidence that you are becoming more like Christ.

But when I actually look at Jesus, that isn’t what I see.

Jesus had boundaries.

He had limits. Standards. Preferences. Desires. Convictions. He protected his time and energy. He rested. He withdrew. He said no. He left. He disappointed people. He refused to perform. He confronted harmful behavior. He allowed people to misunderstand him. He allowed people to walk away.

And none of this diminished his love.

In fact, his boundaries helped make his love honest, intentional, and freely given.

When we talk about Christian boundaries or ask whether setting boundaries is biblical, Jesus himself may be the clearest place to begin. Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus withdraw from demands, protect time for solitude and prayer, refuse requests, confront harmful behavior, maintain priorities, allow people to leave, and choose when and how he would give himself. His life challenges the idea that Christian love requires unlimited access, constant availability, or the abandonment of self.

Jesus Did Not Make Himself Endlessly Available

One of my favorite examples happens in Mark.

Jesus has been healing people, casting out demons, and responding to enormous need. The next morning, before sunrise, he leaves.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Mark 1:35

Eventually Simon and the others find him and essentially say:

“Everyone is looking for you!”
Mark 1:37

There it is.

Everyone needs you.

Everyone wants you.

Everyone is waiting for you.

There is more work to do.

And Jesus does something remarkable.

He does not go back.

He tells them they are going somewhere else.

“Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages, so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”
Mark 1:38

Jesus allows the needs behind him to remain unmet because he knows where he is going next.

That is a boundary.

And underneath that boundary is desire and purpose.

He knows what he has come to do.

He is not simply responding to the loudest person, the greatest need, or the most immediate demand.

How many women and men have been taught to do exactly the opposite?

Who needs me?

Who is upset?

Who is disappointed?

Who wants something?

Who might think I’m selfish?

And then we organize our lives around answering those questions instead of ever asking:

What am I called toward?

What do I desire?

Where is life asking me to go?

Boundaries protect our ability to hear those answers.

Jesus Protected Rest and Spaciousness

Luke tells us that as Jesus became increasingly known, the demands upon him increased.

“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Luke 5:15–16

Notice the word but.

The crowds were growing.

But Jesus withdrew.

There were people who still wanted healing.

But Jesus withdrew.

There were people who wanted teaching.

But Jesus withdrew.

There was more he could have done.

But Jesus withdrew.

Rest was not something Jesus earned after every human need had been satisfied.

If that had been the requirement, he would never have rested.

Instead, Jesus protected spaciousness.

Solitude.

Prayer.

Stillness.

Communion with God.

His inner life mattered enough to interrupt his productivity.

For those of us who have learned to measure our goodness by our usefulness, that is radical.

Your exhaustion is not proof of your love.

Your depletion is not proof of your devotion.

There will always be another person who could use something from you.

Jesus himself did not use the existence of another person’s need as evidence that he was required to meet it.

Jesus Protected His Expression

Jesus was not endlessly agreeable.

He spoke.

He confronted.

He questioned.

He challenged.

He grieved.

He wept.

He became angry.

He told people things they did not want to hear.

When he encountered exploitation in the temple, he did not suppress his response in order to appear pleasant.

He overturned tables.

“My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Matthew 21:13

Whatever else we understand about that moment, Jesus certainly was not performing niceness.

His love did not require the suppression of his expression.

That matters.

Because many of us have been taught that goodness means being agreeable, though the conditioning may look different for men and women.

Women may learn to stay pleasant, accommodating, and easy to be around.

Men may learn to suppress what they actually feel, avoid difficult conversations, keep everyone happy, or confuse being “a good man” with never disappointing anyone.

Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

Don’t be too much.

Don’t be angry.

Don’t say the thing.

Don’t disrupt the room.

Different conditioning.

Same result: self-abandonment.

But expression is part of aliveness.

A boundary creates a container in which authentic expression can exist.

Without boundaries, expression slowly becomes performance:

What can I safely say?

What version of me will everyone tolerate?

Jesus did not live that way.

Jesus Wasn’t Always Nice

Jesus was loving.

That is not the same thing as being nice.

He confronted hypocrisy. He challenged religious authorities. He asked uncomfortable questions. He expressed anger. He said things people did not want to hear.

When he saw exploitation in the temple, he overturned tables and said:

“My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Matthew 21:13

Jesus did not suppress truth in order to maintain the appearance of peace.

Sometimes we have confused peacekeeping with peacemaking.

Peacekeeping says:

Don’t upset anyone.

Peacemaking sometimes requires saying:

This is not okay.

Jesus demonstrated that love can have standards.

Compassion can confront.

Kindness does not require compliance.

And boundaries do not require hostility.

Jesus Allowed People to Leave

In John 6, Jesus gives a difficult teaching. Some of his followers reject it.

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
John 6:66

Jesus doesn’t chase them.

Instead, he turns to the Twelve and asks:

“You do not want to leave too, do you?”
John 6:67

He allows people to choose.

That is an extraordinary relational boundary.

Jesus did not abandon himself to prevent other people from abandoning him.

He did not reshape himself into whatever would guarantee acceptance.

Love does not require controlling another person’s response to us.

Sometimes self-respect means allowing another person to misunderstand, disapprove, or even leave.

Jesus Did Not Give Everyone Unlimited Access

Even relationship did not automatically equal immediate access.

While Jesus was teaching, someone told him:

“Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
Matthew 12:47

He did not immediately stop what he was doing simply because family wanted him.

This isn’t a rejection of family. It demonstrates something important:

Loving someone does not mean they are entitled to unlimited access to you.

Jesus could love deeply while maintaining priorities, limits, and purpose.

Jesus Actually Taught People to Leave

When Jesus sent his disciples out to teach, he told them what to do when people refused to receive them:

“Leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”
Matthew 10:14

Leave.

Not convince indefinitely.

Not prove yourself.

Not stay forever hoping that if you love hard enough, serve enough, or explain yourself perfectly enough, rejection will become acceptance.

There are times for perseverance and repair.

And there are times to leave.

Jesus taught both.

Jesus Refused to Perform

People repeatedly demanded that Jesus prove himself.

In Mark 8, the Pharisees demand a sign from heaven.

Jesus refuses.

“Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”
Mark 8:12

Then he gets into the boat and leaves.

He does not allow another person’s skepticism to become an endless audition for his worth.

Jesus knew who he was without requiring everyone else to agree.

There is enormous freedom in that.

I do not have to engineer your perception of me so that I can feel safe.

I can explain myself when explanation is appropriate.

I can listen.

I can repair when I have caused harm.

But I do not have to spend my life convincing everyone that I am good, worthy, lovable, or right.

Jesus didn’t.

Jesus Had Desire, Beauty, and Pleasure in His Life

Jesus was not spiritually elevated because he had extinguished desire.

Before the Last Supper he told his disciples:

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
Luke 22:15

He desired.

He celebrated.

He attended weddings.

He shared meals.

He cultivated friendships.

He accepted hospitality.

He sought solitude.

He received affection.

And when a woman poured expensive perfume over him and others criticized the extravagance, Jesus defended her:

“Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
Matthew 26:10

Jesus did not demand that every beautiful thing justify itself through usefulness.

His spirituality contained relationship, pleasure, beauty, rest, expression, desire, and communion.

Boundaries protected the space in which those things could exist.

Jesus Protected His Body

Jesus’ embodiment matters too.

He ate when he was hungry.

He slept.

He became tired.

He touched and was touched.

He sought solitude.

He experienced physical anguish.

Christianity makes an extraordinary claim: God did not merely communicate with humanity intellectually.

He took on a body.

And that body had limits.

One of the strangest distortions of Christian spirituality is therefore the idea that ignoring our bodies somehow makes us more spiritual.

Our bodies communicate.

I’m tired.

I’m overwhelmed.

I’m hungry.

I need quiet.

I don’t want this.

I want that.

I need space.

A boundary is often the behavioral expression of something the body already knows.

Embodiment requires enough internal safety to listen.

The Cross: Sacrifice Is Not Self-Abandonment.

This is where Christianity’s relationship with boundaries can become painfully confused.

Jesus suffered.

Jesus surrendered.

Jesus sacrificed himself.

Therefore, some of us learned that suffering must be holy.

That tolerating harm is Christlike.

That saying no is selfish.

That leaving is failure.

That having limits demonstrates insufficient love.

But the Jesus who surrendered at the cross was the same Jesus who had spent his ministry saying no, leaving crowds, withdrawing to rest, confronting authorities, refusing demands, expressing desire, and allowing people to walk away.

Jesus’ sacrifice did not come from an inability to set boundaries.

It came from someone who had demonstrated them repeatedly.

And we should not sanitize what happened to him.

Jesus was executed.

Human beings with political power subjected his body to horrific violence and killed him.

Christian theology understands Jesus as knowingly and willingly surrendering to what was coming. John places this remarkable statement in his mouth:

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”
John 10:18

That distinction is essential.

His surrender was chosen.

His sacrifice had purpose.

It was not extracted from him because he was afraid to disappoint someone.

It was not the result of being unable to say no.

And his willingness to surrender does not transform victimization into virtue.

The cross is not an instruction to become crucifiable.

Suffering is not automatically sacred.

Abuse is not made holy by enduring it.

Self-erasure is not spiritual maturity.

And a lack of boundaries is not some spiritually advanced state in which we finally become loving enough to let everyone have unlimited access to us.

Jesus didn’t live that way.

Boundaries Made Love Possible

Maybe we have confused sacrifice with self-abandonment because they can look similar from the outside.

Both can cost us something.

But internally they are profoundly different.

Sacrifice says: I understand what this costs, and I freely choose to give it.

Self-abandonment says: I don’t believe I’m allowed to choose.

One requires agency.

The other relinquishes it.

Jesus’ life contained extraordinary sacrifice.

It also contained extraordinary agency.

His yes belonged to him because his no belonged to him.

His rest belonged to him.

His anger belonged to him.

His desire belonged to him.

His time belonged to him.

His relationships belonged to him.

His purpose belonged to him.

And ultimately, his life belonged to him to give.

A yes means very little when no is forbidden.

Perhaps becoming more Christlike does not mean becoming easier to consume.

Perhaps it means learning to love from a place rooted enough to have limits.

To serve without disappearing.

To forgive without granting unlimited access.

To rest while needs still exist.

To speak truth even when it disrupts false peace.

To leave when leaving is appropriate.

To let people misunderstand us without frantically trying to control their perception.

To allow another person to leave without leaving ourselves to make them stay.

Jesus had boundaries.

Jesus taught boundaries.

Jesus respected the agency of others and exercised his own.

And perhaps his example gives us permission to stop treating self-abandonment as holiness.

Because Jesus didn’t love people by having no self to protect.

He loved them as himself.

The work may look different for men and women, but the invitation is remarkably similar: stop abandoning yourself to become who you think others need you to be. Christina explores that journey through ESSoessence and the reclamation of the divine feminine. At Forge The Man, we challenge men to reclaim mature masculinity through alignment, boundaries, ownership, purpose, brotherhood, and self-mastery. Different paths. Same invitation: come home to who you actually are.

Christina is the founder of ESSoessence, a movement devoted to helping women rediscover and reconnect with their inner divine essence. Her work explores feminine embodiment, spirituality, relationships, boundaries, sexuality, healing, and the journey back to the authentic self beneath conditioning and expectation. Christina frequently collaborates with Ben Dodge and Forge The Man, bringing the feminine perspective into conversations about masculine and feminine integration, relationships, personal growth, and spiritual expansion.

FAQ: Jesus and Healthy Christian Boundaries

Did Jesus have boundaries?
Yes. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus withdrew for solitude and prayer, refused demands, maintained priorities, confronted harmful behavior, allowed people to walk away, and did not make himself endlessly available to everyone who wanted access to him.

Is setting boundaries biblical?
The life of Jesus provides numerous examples of limits, intentionality, agency, and discernment. Biblical love does not necessarily mean unlimited availability or compliance. Boundaries can create the conditions in which love, service, and sacrifice are freely chosen rather than compelled.

Did Jesus ever say no?
Yes. Jesus refused demands placed upon him, including requests that he prove himself through signs. He also left places where people still wanted something from him and directed his energy toward what he understood his purpose to be.

Are boundaries selfish for Christians?
Boundaries are not inherently selfish. A boundary can protect the time, energy, relationships, responsibilities, and spiritual practices that allow a person to give intentionally. The distinction is not simply between giving and refusing; it is between conscious choice and self-abandonment.

What is the difference between Christian sacrifice and self-abandonment?
Sacrifice involves agency: I understand what this costs, and I freely choose to give it. Self-abandonment occurs when someone believes they are not allowed to choose. Jesus’ sacrifice came within a life characterized by agency, purpose, limits, and intentional choice.

Forge The Man

If you’re tired of merely enduring your life, stop trying to muscle through it alone. https://www.forgetheman.me/

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A necessary distinction: There is a difference between feeling exhausted by your life and wanting your life to end. If “I don’t want to do another day of this” becomes “I don’t want to be alive,” thoughts of suicide, or thoughts of harming yourself, don’t treat that as a mindset problem. Tell someone you trust and seek immediate professional support.

If you’re new here, learn more about my journey—from attorney and endurance athlete to founder of Forge The Man—and why this work has become my life’s mission.

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Ben Dodge, J.D.
Adventurer, Author, Entrepreneur, Extreme Endurance Athlete, Lawyer

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