One of the most important things a person has on earth is his or her church family. God has given us this church family for many reasons: a help in our times of trial, friends to be glad for us or to sympathize with us, for fellowship. But I want to focus on the reason of accountability. God has blessed us by giving us people to be accountable to. Yes, blessed us. I know for myself, I have a hard time asking people for help or admitting I need help with something. After all, that seems to imply weakness, and who wants to appear weak? But God calls us to help each other out when it comes to accountability. Accountability is being responsible to others for our actions, but I want to focus especially on accountability for sins in our lives. This is so important because it keeps us from hiding our sin. Being accountable to someone else for sin will first of all possibly keep us from committing a certain sin. Knowing you will have to tell someone else about your sin or knowing someone else might find out about your sin might keep you from committing the sin in the first place. Also, having someone else know about your struggle with a certain sin can help you in the path to repentance for that sin. The other person can help you see your sin for what it is, because so often we have such a hard time actually realizing we are sinning. The other person can also help pray for us to overcome our struggle with a sin. God has given us such a great gift in our church family, and we have to remember to use this gift! Accountability is so helpful and necessary in our lives, and we know that God has blessed us with people around us to be accountable to-our church family.
Abbie Eriks
Young Calvinists 