Jesus wants us to be accountable by David S Nishimoto

I want to talk about accountability. Accountability is one of the great processes in life that we live and we shouldn’t fear. Accountability is our reporting back to the Lord what we’ve done in our lives. Whether that reporting is something we regret or we’re ashamed of or sad about, or something that we’re proud of and we like and we feel happy about. Those two contrasts are part of the process of accountability.

It’s possible for us to lie to anyone. We could lie to our friends. We could lie to our bosses. We could lie to lie to our loved ones. But can we lie to ourselves? That’s where accountability becomes important. When we take a fearless inventory of our weaknesses and our strengths, we’re actually taking accountability for our actions. We’re saying, “I am responsible for my actions, the outcome of those actions and the effects of my behavior on other people.”

We don’t usually like to talk about accountability, because that’s something that we feel like when we have to go before ecclesiastical leaders and give accountability for our personal worthiness. We may feel uncomfortable about any weaknesses that we have, and those sometimes become stumbling blocks in our lives. Rather than shed those weaknesses

It all starts with accountability. How can we go before a God of justice and lie to Him? He will see through us with his all-piercing eye. His spirit will pierce us like a two-edged sword, and He will perceive in us any deceit found there. Can we shield ourselves from His fierce anger if we offend a just God? The prophets of the Book of Mormon came forth and warned the people that God is just and that He has great power. He has great wisdom. He also has great anger if we rebel against Him.

Can we change just based on His anger? I think we can awaken ourselves to the terrible situation that we’re in if we say that the Lord cannot be angry when we openly rebel against His laws and commandments. What about when we succumb to weakness, and we are in transgression against His laws? We’ve trespassed His laws. We feel ashamed for that. We feel discouraged. We feel unworthy of His love. I don’t think that changes His perspective of us. He still loves us despite what we’ve done. Do we escape the consequences of what we do? No, we have to face those consequences, and in some cases, we must confess those things that we have done to our ecclesiastical leaders. Through this process, by admitting our guilt in what we have done wrong, we take accountability for our actions.

This is the beautiful message of accountability. We are taking responsibility for what we do, and we’re taking responsibility for the outcome of our life and the direction we want our lives to go. Once you have that power, the Lord can start to work a mighty change in your heart. You can receive the healing that comes through the Holy Ghost. You can receive that mercy that comes through Christ’s atonement. You can be cleansed every whit from your sins. You will still have to pay a price. Someone has to pay the price that meets the demands of justice. We can escape some of this payment through Christ’s atonement. If we repent and go through the process of reconciliation, restitution, and then forsaking that sin, we will receive the mercy and forgiveness of the Father for what we have done. He can heal the hearts of those who have been injured. He can make right the losses that people have taken through the effects of our behavior upon them. He can restore the things back to whole. That process can lead to healing.

The emotion of fear is Satan’s counterfeit. He wants us to be afraid and fear God, He wants us to think that God is not going to be pleased with us. He wants us to think that God is going to be cruel to us and that we are going to be punished for everything that we do. It’s almost as if he’s saying, “You’re like a child, and you’re going to get hurt if you go and confess to the Lord what you’ve done.” In reality, by confessing to the Lord what we have done, we restore ourselves back to a position of safety. We escape the influence of Satan. We put ourselves back on course along the covenant path that God wants us to walk. We are made whole.

As we do that, we have a change of heart. We begin to realize how our actions have impacted others. We become cognizant of the cost of those actions on the lives of others. We then start to begin the healing process. We let the Lord heal them. We take the appropriate actions in our lives to make those wrongs right. We make amends to those who we will not bring additional harm to, and to restore our well being back to a state of safety again. Best of all, we have the feeling of peace restored in our hearts, and the Holy Spirit then floods our lives and leads us along the simple path of life

(Bible imagery by David S Nishimoto on Smashwords)