What does the Bible say about enabling behavior?

The Bible does not use the modern term “enabling,” but it addresses the dangers of fostering dependence or failing to teach responsibility (Galatians 6:5). True love involves setting boundaries and encouraging growth, not allowing destructive patterns to continue.

How is parenting compared to God’s relationship with His children?

Just as parents teach and guide children toward maturity, God instructs His followers through His Word. He expects believers to grow from spiritual infancy to maturity, moving from “milk” to “solid food” in their understanding and obedience.

Does Jesus enable us to keep sinning?

Some people mistakenly view Jesus as continually forgiving without expectation of change. While His grace is abundant, Scripture makes clear that maturity and transformation in Christ are expected, not a cycle of repeated dependence on sin.

Is Jesus The Ultimate Enabler? part 1

5 minutes

The Concept of Enabling in Families

What does it mean if Jesus is an enabler? We begin our search for an answer:

Enabling is not a bad thing, in and of itself; in fact, we need enablement in many forms. But we also know that when it comes to parenting, enablement can become a trap, a crutch, a get-out-of-jail-free card. Most of us know parents with adult children that continue to rely on their parents to supply them with some or many of their needs: someplace to live, money for various things, legal help, and the list goes on.

In our society we call that “enabling” and it has a negative connotation that it deserves after children reach adult age. The goal of most parents is to nurture and teach their children to be self-sufficient. As they emerge into adulthood, parents want kids they can be proud of and hopefully carry forward their parents love and faithfulness to God.

We quote from the VeryWellMind.com website article: Setting Boundaries With Adult Children

Encouraging independence: Establishing boundaries encourages adult children to take responsibility for their own lives. It supports their growth into independent, self-sufficient individuals who can make decisions and handle challenges on their own.

Sadly, many children fail to make that clean break from dependency on their parents to providing for their own needs. The lines can get blurry for children and parents alike. Parents don’t stop loving their kids after they have grown up. Emerging adults may find it easier to continue pulling resources from their parents rather than acquiring them through their own effort.

Young love, or lust in many cases, brings forth grandchildren. In or out of marriage, grandparents will love their grandchildren and want safety and nurturing for them. When you draw that line in the sand to stop funding the adult child’s life, would you see your grandchildren put out on the street? We know several couples with these exact circumstances plaguing them year after year.

The Role of Love and Boundaries

Love is one of the most powerful emotions and motivators of behavior in the world. Love is a truly beautiful extension of ourselves in what we give to, and do for, the good of others. Yet, this can become a snare. In a functional home, parents teach their children the life-skills of self-dependence that prepares them for adulthood. They create boundaries for them that apply as they get older, and set times for them to climb that next rung on the ladder of independence.

Obedient children learn and apply these instructions, and the parents are proud of them when they do. Disobedient children miss the mark and lag behind schedule or completely fail to achieve self-reliance. Boundaries once set are not honored according to plan. Dates for independence get moved out or ignored to the point of irrelevance.

God the Father and Our Spiritual Growth

Our relationship with God the Father is no different. He teaches us in the Bible what we need to know, starting us on spiritual milk and moving us on to solid food as we mature. First, we learn the basics of accepting Christ as our Savior. Then we learn how to live according to His teaching and example. He expects us to “grow up”! Maturity in our faith is not a helpful suggestion, it is a mandate. We show this in our “hungering and thirsting after righteousness”. It is the very act of being born again in the Spirit, having left the old man of sin dead.

The Tension in Doctrine

Many of us came to faith in Jesus believing doctrines we were taught. Many think He is always there for us as we plow through this life in a continual battle with sin, never completely free from our fallen human nature. We were taught to believe He is always there to keep forgiving us again and again. But if this is true, does this not make Him the ultimate “enabler” while we keep sinning? Were we not promised the “truth” that sets us free John 8:32? Please continue with us in Part 2 of this liberating article.