May the peace and grace from our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied in your life on this wonderful day! I pray for God’s Word to saturate your spirit and strengthen you in spirit, soul and body.During these past days we have been talking about the importance of accountability. In quite many places in the Bible God calls us to walk in submission and accountability not just before Him, but also before one another.Of course, the desire to be free and independent is natural for people. We tend to live an independent life and avoid people who demand us give account; we like to say what we want, to do what we want and when we want it. God says that that is a way to destruction.Unfortunately, we witness the fall of many believers, even among the ministers; in many cases the reason is in the lack of accountability in their lives. Some of these ministers were moving on high levels of God’s glory, but then they fell in sin and lost the ministry, because they were not accountable to anybody neither in their ministry nor in their walk with God.With deep regret David wrote about the fall of mighty men:
“The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!” (2 Samuel, 1:19).
One of the reasons of the fall is the lack of accountability. People often make serious mistakes because they do not allow God to change them through accountability. God wants to shield us from problems. When we are accountable to someone, it helps us to see thing in our lives that hinder us from moving forward. Every one of us has some areas (sins, faults etc.) in our lives that we are not really aware of. These things are usually obvious for the people we submit to. They can help you to see them if you allow them to do it. You won’t be able to do it without the assistance of other people; that is why we need one another. We need people who love us enough to open our eyes to those things that hinder our growth and advancement in this life.Some people are afraid to talk about their weaknesses because they do not take criticism and correction very well. But when you are accountable to someone then you are willing to let into your life the people that you trust and that you know them well enough and that are able to speak into your. You deliberately say to them: «I allow you to correct».Even though God tells us to correct each other you know there are some people that do not accept any correction. Whenever you try to do it they start correcting you. Have you ever faced such people? You try to correct them, but they do not listen to you or even try to correct you.God desires for us to be accountable to people because it makes us better and gives us protection. The system of accountability helps us to stay on our course and do not get distracted. When you experience problems or fail in some area of your life, the people you are accountable to will cover you with prayer, care and support. The system of accountability helps us to model for one another how to not give up, but keep moving forward. Accountability allows us to submerge in Christ and to be one with other members of the Body of Christ: «…so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another» (Romans, 12:5).
Accountability makes us strong and unites us to the other believers; it also kills the “I am a lone island” thinking. This type of thinking has caused many problems that the Body of Christ still suffers from.God does not want you to be an island that is separated and independent of the other brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not only responsible to being accountable ourselves; we also need to call others to accountability and help them with it. We will continue tomorrow.God bless you!Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
