The band I play in is getting together tonight for some worship at the Lighthouse Club in downtown Jackson at 7:00. I’ll let these pictures explain the rest:
There’s been a thought stuck in my mind for about a week or two and it was related to a Bible verse I had read somewhere. Today in my reading, I came right across that verse and so I want to hit on it real quick.
See, I’ve found an odd effect in accountability. There have been times where I have admitted issues to friends so that they can help me get on the right path, and within time, those people all of the sudden have the same struggle. It’s as though in a weak moment of their life, they thought about me and considered me someone who was trying to be a good Christian but had issues. And then in that moment they fell into those struggles.
Now accountability is incredibly important. We should all look for people to hold us to God’s standard of living. But if we’re going to take on accountability, we need to do so with strong hearts. Here’s the verse I am referring to in Galatians 6:1.
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
It’s that last part that I really feel fits what I’m trying to say. When you go to hold someone accountable, you actually need to watch yourself. If you go in thinking that your invulnerable to anyone’s issues, you may leave your guard down to a prowling, roaring lion who seeks to devour you. In a weak moment you may find your defenses crashing down because you know of that Christian who wants to live right, but is stuck in transgression. That being said, those of you in the realm of counseling should especially keep your guard up.
Also note that you should restore that person in a spirit of gentleness. I wrote on that theme in an older post. And it’s a good note for me right now because I’ve been reflecting the severe words of Paul on transgression in passages such as 1 Corinthians 5. The two help you see balance in Paul’s dealings with Christians.
We must seek to live righteous knowing at the same time that Jesus is our righteousness. Restore one another in gentleness. Find an accountability partner. And to make my “odd” point clear once more: guard yourself as you hold someone accountable, lest you be tempted too. If you fall into the same problems as the person you’re trying to help, you’ll both need help and your accountability for each other will be weak.
That’s something I’ve also experienced. Accountability partners who struggle with the same struggle don’t do the greatest job at helping each other get out of the struggle because neither experience much of the freedom they both desire. Neither of the two stand as a model to say, “Dude, this is great, you gotta come up here!” Instead you throw pity parties for each other.
“This was an issue again yesterday.”
“Yeah, same here.”
“Yeah. Let’s not do that again.”
“Okay.”
Two days pass and the conversation happens again.
I’m not saying that these accountability groups are bad. But you may experience much more success if you bring a few other trustworthy people into your group who can show you what freedom looks like. That way they can restore you in gentleness and you’ll actually want to be like them.
And that’s my spiel on odd effects.
Click the images to enlarge:
These pictures were actually scanned with my iPhone using the app TurboScan.
More Haven fun:
We’re closing up on this first round of Apollos. If you’re interested in taking the class this next “semester” then leave a comment to let us know ASAP! Also, Dr. Ken Brewer will be helping teach this upcoming Apollos which will be incredibly exciting for everyone involved. Here’s the details:
And now take your pick between the Signs and Wonders high quality PDF or the smaller reduced quality PDF. Their relatively short as they just look at a few of the signs and wonders Jesus did in His life. We spent most of our meeting yesterday addressing some of the craziest signs and wonders that have happened throughout history. Learn about it yourself by reading the following book:
I’ve spent a good portion of this morning reading and praying and there’s been a repetitive theme that I’ve seen while doing so. I first came across it this morning while reading They Shall Expel Demons by Derek Prince, a book I mentioned I was reading recently on instagram (yeah that was a shameless plug for you instagrammers):
As I was reading through it today, Prince listed 5 qualities that were typically found in false religions. That one that really caught me by surprise was number 4: “Religions teaching that people can attain righteousness by their own efforts.”
Again, the appeal is to human pride. Proud people are drawn to religious systems that demand hard, unreasonable forms of work and even self-inflicted suffering. The more rigorous the demands of a religion, the greater the degree of pride a person feels in fulfilling them.
Now perhaps this shouldn’t have caught me off guard. After all I’ve preached it before and I understand that our perfection is found in Jesus. But on the other side of things, we Christians do have to push ourselves to stay disciplined in the faith and stay away from sin. We have to seek to be perfect as God is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
The problem is that many of us Christians focus so much on disciplining ourselves that we never even bring Jesus into the picture. Yes, we are called to live righteously, but Jesus is our righteousness. We cannot become righteous without Him and His all-powerful blood.
There’s a balance. A balance between the all-sufficient atonement of Christ and the discipline of your flesh. If you focus only on yourself and your flesh, “you appeal to human pride,” as Prince said. If you only call yourself saved under the grace of Jesus, but never look to live a righteous life, you take advantage of grace. For this reason, you could cast out demons and do miracles in the power of the name of Jesus and God could still tell you “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-23). You could be a Christian and do Christian things and at the same time be a worker of lawlessness.
I think a lot of times I tend to find myself on the side of “I’m not good enough” rather than on the side of “Jesus is good enough for me.” And I think this morning God was trying to restore that balance in my head. I had read what Prince had to say while I was at home and then, when I got to my office, I decided to take communion. Now I tend to open myself up to communion differently when I take it in private, (i.e. in worship, reflection, meditation, or quiet), but this time I went with the good ol’ fashioned Free Methodist handbook. And as I read through it, this stuck out to me:
We do not come to this Your table, O merciful Lord, with self-confidence and pride, trusting in our own righteousness, but we trust in Your great and many mercies. We are not worthy to gather the crumbs from under Your table. But You, O Lord, are unchanging in Your mercy and Your nature is love; grant us, therefore, God of mercy, God of grace, so to eat at this Your table that we may receive in spirit and in truth the body of Your dear Son, Jesus Christ, and the merits of His shed blood, so that we may live and grow in His likeness and, being washed and cleansed through His most precious blood, we may evermore live in Him and He in us. Amen. (Emphasis mine)
Enter the balance. If you’re like me and tend to focus more on your good works, start to focus on Jesus’ righteousness. You can’t achieve it without Him as seen in Romans 3:21-26.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
But if you’re used to taking advantage of Jesus’ righteousness, grace, and mercy and living an immoral life of sin, start to discipline yourself and do what you’re called to do as pointed out in James 2:14-17.
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Righteousness comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ. But we are hardly righteous if we don’t live like it. For a long time I’ve tried to reconcile the following two passages together:
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Despite what it may look like at first glance, I no longer think these verses are at odds with each other. I mean you read a bunch of the other letters Paul wrote and it becomes completely obvious that he knows you have to live righteously to get into Heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-11):
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Paul and James aren’t at war with each other. They’re emphasizing different sides of the spectrum. Paul shows the victory of the righteousness we gain from Jesus. James acknowledges that victory while stating the obvious that we still have to live righteously and our works should show it.
And with that, I’m going to close. I think the Holy Spirit has taken me much further into this discussion than I thought He would! I meant to wrap up like three paragraphs after my picture!
How are you imbalanced in this discussion? Make steps to fix it. Ask Righteousness to help.
