I’m a big fan of the show Severance. If you’re unfamiliar with it, maybe you’ve been living under a rock, or maybe you just don’t have Apple TV (considering Severance is pretty much the only reason to have it). It’s about a group of office workers using new technology that severs their consciousness.

When they go to work and enter the elevator, they become severed from their outside selves. In the basement office, they’re a completely different identity, an “innie,” with no memory or awareness of their outside life. When they leave work, the process reverses. Their “outie” has no memory of what happened at work. Two identities, fully separated.

When I think about this concept in terms of religious faith, especially Christianity, it reminds me of the way we often approach boundaries, asking who’s in and who’s out. We tend to imagine a fixed boundary line. If you’ve confessed that Christ is Lord, then you’re in. If not, you’re out. While that confession is important and foundational, it’s a good thing to say and live by, it can also become a limiting frame.

The Bible tells us that even demons believe in Christ.

“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

James 2:19

So, if belief alone defines the boundary, then is that really the best measure of where someone stands with God?

What if instead of a fixed boundary, we thought in terms of a centered set? Picture a target with Christ at the center. The question becomes not “Are you in or out?” but “Are you moving closer to the center or further away?”

Think about wealth as an example. Who’s at the center? Probably the richest person you can imagine. Most of us aren’t right at the center, but every day we make choices, spending, saving, giving, that move us either closer or further from that point. It’s a spectrum, not a switch. There’s no elevator that instantly transforms us from outie to innie. It’s a daily movement, a journey.

And I believe that’s how our walk with Christ should look. Jesus didn’t just say believe in me; He said abide in Me.

“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”

John 15:6

The goal isn’t simply to make a one-time decision. It’s to keep drawing closer to Him.

When we live with a fixed boundary mindset, we focus on the bare minimum. What’s the least I have to do to be in? It’s the spiritual equivalent of “C’s get degrees.” God isn’t calling us to settle for spiritual mediocrity. He’s calling us into relationship, transformation, and closeness.

To be clear, I’m not saying that works save us. They don’t. It’s not about trying harder or doing more to earn grace. Everyone should make the decision to declare that Jesus is Lord of their life. They should invite Him into their heart, but if that’s our sole goal, then we will cheapen grace and breed a body of believers who are living on the fringe of the boundary. The Gospel doesn’t exist for us to be on the cusp of being an innie or an outie. It’s about intimacy, continuously drawing closer to God and becoming more like Him.

So ask yourself: what kind of boundary are you living by? Are you severed? Are you in or out? Or are you simply moving, day by day, closer and closer to the center?

Whichever way you answer that, we must remember that proximity matters over position alone. Every step forward counts! The important question isn’t whether we’ve arrived—it’s whether we’re heading somewhere meaningful, alongside One whose love knows no bounds.