Being Accountable

Jeremiah 23:24 '"Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?" says the Lord.'

When you truly understand that God knows all the secrets hidden in your heart, and yet loves you anyway, you will find that your desire to do things that are pleasing to Him will increase. Having God as your main accountability partner will help prevent you from doing things that you may later regret. However, it is also important that we make ourselves accountable to others as well. Temptations are all around us, every single day of our lives, and Satan loves to see us trip over them! None of us are so pure that we do not have to fight temptation and those who think they are above reproach are only fooling themselves.

Making yourself accountable to others forces you to be more responsible in your actions and to avoid giving in to temptations. Millions of dieters throughout the world have found that having an accountability partner has helped them resist breaking their diet and helped them remain focused and motivated with their exercise routine. In the same way, having a friend who can pray for you and with you, and help you to stay focused on living your life to please God, makes all the difference to your spiritual walk. Of course, your accountability partner does not know everything about you and will only know what you confess to, but if they are walking alongside you they will soon get to know you well enough to know when you are hiding something from them!

I personally have grown to find it incredibly comforting to know that God knows everything about me. That He knows what I am going to think, say or do even before I do! The reason that I find this comforting is because it means He cares. Our heavenly Father, who created the infinite Universe, loves me so much that He is concerned with my every thought! And when I make a mistake, get angry and lose my cool, say something I shouldn't, I know that He still loves me.

It takes strength to hold one's self accountable to others and to God. Making yourself vulnerable and admitting to your weaknesses is one of the most difficult things that human's face. We all like to feel that we are strong enough to handle things on our own and yet that is not the way that God has created us. He has created us for community and a certain level of interdependency. That is why we are told that we are all a "part" of the body of Christ! We are not an independent body, fully self-sufficient and not needing others in any way. No, we are all unique with our own particular gifts and abilities that we bring to enrich and strengthen our Church community in order to make it more effective in doing God's work. Who do you hold yourself accountable to?

The Things We Say…!

Luke 6:45 'The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart …. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.'

Every day God presents us with opportunities to impact the lives of others. We do not have to travel to foreign countries to make a difference in this world. We just have to touch the lives of the people that we encounter in our everyday lives. A kind word to a colleague or the lady at the till in the grocery store can impact them more than we may ever know. Often we feel the urge to say something nice to someone but then shyness or the fear of rejection overcomes us and so we say nothing. When we have these urges, it could be God prompting us to do His work and by not doing so we have missed an opportunity to bless someone else.

One of our biggest failings is to let down our 'guard' when we are with the ones that we love most – our families. They often bear the brunt of our unpleasant day as we take our frustrations out on them or allow their actions to annoy us to the extent that we snap out at them in anger. We say things to our families that we would never say to someone else! It is so important for us to remember that they are the ones whose lives we influence the most, particularly our children. However, we are all human, we all have good and bad days and there are times when we will be angry or frustrated. The joy of families is that they know you well enough to know when your behavior is out of character and as a result of things going wrong.

What we say and how we say it is also an indication to others, who may not know us well, of our character. Don't allow anger and frustration to take control and cause you to mistreat someone. Rather let the goodness of your heart make an impact on someone's life today in such a way that they are encouraged and uplifted. Remember that, as a child of God, you are also His representative to the world around you. Let His goodness, love and mercy shine through you today.