One of the worst things you could do to yourself is place yourself in a position where you are not accountable to anybody. When I was young, I was constantly trying to get out from under everybody’s authority. I wanted to call my own shots; to answer to nobody; to run my own life. Years of studying scripture and watching others ruin their lives, have deeply impressed upon me the necessity of accountability. I now make sure I am accountable for my words and actions at all times, and I would advise you to seek the same thing. You may disagree. You may think that is ridiculous, at the least, unnecessary. Consider this. God is the only being above the need for accountability. He alone is sovereign. “—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” 1 Timothy 6:15. The rest of us are prone to sin. We need correction. Left to our own evaluation of our words and actions we fail to see the trouble we are in or the trouble we are causing others. Study your history. What happens when a person has no one reprimanding them, telling them they are wrong? Some CEOs have full control of their company and run it the way they want to. They usually run it right into the ground. Or a high official, a king who has no one in their lives with the guts to tell them they are making a huge mistake. They turn into tyrants. In your empire, no matter how small, you need to be accountable to someone. Jesus sent the apostles out in pairs in Matthew 10. Why? So each had at least one person they were accountable to. Every congregation in the Lord’s church has more than one elder. Why? So each shepherd has shepherds. In the church, no individual should have absolute control. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (19th century author, Lord Acton.) Don’t run from accountability. Seek it.
