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Thoughts of...Accountability
I am a big cereal eater. I like the junky cereals, the “plain” unsweetened cereals, and even the high-fiber cereals (I especially like the cereals that are on sale!). My favorites tend to be the classics – Grape-Nuts, Wheaties, Wheat/Rice/Corn Chex – that need a little sugar boost.
Up until several months ago, I always used my spoon to get some sugar out of the sugar bowl. For the second bowl of cereal, the spoon, due to the moisture on it, would be covered with sugar. I think you all know what I’m talking about. That first mouthful from the second bowl of cereal was particularly delightful!
Then my wife had to go and “ruin” it for me by telling me how unsanitary that was. I tried rationalizing my behavior by explaining that all the “contaminated” grains of sugar were stuck to my spoon. She dismissed my explanation as foolishness and equated my “sugar spoon” to “double dipping” in the salsa bowl or with someone drinking directly out of the milk carton and then putting it back in the refrigerator. I had nothing to say; I had never thought of it that way before.
With my new-found greater understanding, I had a choice to make and was accountable for that choice. I changed my cereal-eating behavior. I no longer “double dip” my spoon in the sugar bowl (Well, actually, I did this morning, but don’t tell my wife!).
The very same principle applies when we read the Word of God, the Bread of Life. Once the Lord has given us a greater revelation of truth by His Word, we have behavior choices to make and are accountable to Him for those choices.
The prophet Daniel, and the nation of Israel through the prophet, was told the precise day that the Messiah would enter into Jerusalem (). He was commanded to know and understand the vision of the Seventy Weeks. Israel did not know the actual day when it came, but they were held accountable by the Lord ().
A few days after His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and just a few days before He went to the Cross, Jesus Christ told his inquiring disciples that Herod’s Temple would be destroyed and what the signs of His coming and of the end of the age would be (Matt 24-25). The Holy Spirit, Who inspired Matthew to record the Lord’s words, holds us accountable to understand what Jesus said, particularly about an impending “moment of truth” in the history of Israel and the world (, , ).
God has given us His Word, through which He reveals Himself to us (, ). His ways and His will are explained to us in The Word of God (, , with ). Then, the Word changes our hearts and our behavior when we submit to the Lord’s authority in our life and we obey His will.
Each day we make many choices about whom we are going to serve – the Lord or ourselves (, , , , ). The all-seeing, all-knowing Lord God Almighty holds us accountable for those choices. And the more you know, the more accountable you are.
Pastor Doug
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