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?
No comments:
Post a Comment