Uncountably Accountable

Is it truly possible to control a man's heart by controlling his behavior, his office or his geography? Is this what "accountability" has boiled down to? That if a we be part of a church, team, home group or denomination, we are safely “accountable”? Joab, Lot, Judas, Demas were not accountable. Controlled maybe. They were all "in team".

A man's heart is what guides him. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. No-one else can guard it. Only God’s Spirit and sentry in me. The heart is either soft or stone, good or bad, becoming better or worse. It is either Spirit-controlled or under compulsions. An offended man is like a walled city - polite, but indifferent. An ambitious man knows exactly how to tow the line and coo with the doves. A passive man knows how to look holy. A yes man always looks good to a driven leader. A sinful man knows how to give away the smaller sins. An impressionist knows exactly how to turn the facts into something more palatable. An unteachable man always has a fine-sounding argument. A grumpy man will still laugh when everyone else does. A weak-willed man will go with the flow and not cause a ripple. And what of "loners"? A loner on team is a subversive. A loner off team is a secessionist. A loner in point position is a benign savage. A loner in retirement is sour...

"What's your point??". Mmm, the point is that only intimacy, mutual love and respect can create the bridges for covenant "accountability". I am not speaking here of "warning the divisive man", or "handing the grievous sinner over to Satan", but the realities of invited counsel, the pains of disclosed shame, the heights of vision and the depths of despair. Stuff that makes for great bands, bound and binding themselves to one another in love.

Either one Tuning Fork is raising up a symphony, or many instruments are playing a few careful and cautious notes together, to avoid a cacophony.

Laws of compulsion introduce sterility, cowardice and imitation, and pillage our entrepreneurship, courage and blazing adventure. In one, we wear masks until our dying day. In the other, we peel off the veneers and find God in each other through the shock of seeing the "warts and all".

Under legislated accountability, people are either heroes or zeroes. Under covenant love, we all have strengths and weaknesses; we can accept all men, even sinners, and enjoy their strengths while covering over much nakedness.

What of the "hero" with brilliant theology in all but one glaring area - where he serves a fine feast along with a single slice of dark mud? Under compulsion, we swallow down the food, mud and all. Without masks, we can find ourselves in a place of humility and teachableness, where we no longer are more passionate about being proved right than we are about learning from others....where correction and rejection are more lovingly distinct than ever before....where knowledge and doctrine are no longer weapons, but prizes and tools in our mutual quest for God.

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love”

“You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else”