Personal Accountability
“We increase our ability, stability, and responsibility when we increase our sense of accountability to God.”
Many wonder today why there seems to be so little personal accountability. A mistake or offense is always someone else’s fault. There is always a reason for why something turned out wrong that points away from the one at fault. And we have all heard about a car or truck that drove into a crowd of people. The victims were real, but the perpetrator was a thing.
What drives this sort of thinking? In a recent search on the internet regarding this question, the reader was informed of three possibilities: the first was (NPD) Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which points to blame-shifting, a fragile ego, and a lack of empathy. Next came (ASPD) Antisocial Personality Disorder, which relates to rationalization and a lack of remorse. The last possibility was (BPD) Borderline Personality Disorder. This disorder is basically an unconscious defense mechanism against deep emotional vulnerability.
How many hours of study did it take, and how many PHD’s to amass these findings that only perpetuate the idea that these various disorders are the things that rob us of personal accountability?
This is not a modern anomaly; it is actually a perversion of the truth from the beginning. Having disobeyed God in Eden, Adam was asked if he had rejected God’s command. “Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:12). Automatically, his own sin was the woman’s fault, and secondarily, the fault lay with God for having given her to be his wife. “And the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:13). True to mankind’s new form, she passed the blame on to Satan. And so it goes today.
From Eden until now, what is it really that drives the avoidance of personal accountability? Very simply — God has been removed as the author of truth. The Apostle Paul wrote, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:28). Without God and His truth, there remain no guidelines to direct the conscience toward personal accountability.
We are living now in a culture that allows and even encourages the avoidance of personal accountability toward God. Isaiah describes the fruit of such self-deception. “Therefore justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness! We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places” (Isaiah 59:9–10). Without God, there is only spiritual darkness and desolation.
True to God’s form, however, Christ will return to this earth after humanity has finally felt the horrible fruit of rejecting God. “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.’ So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm’” (Joel 2:12–13). God will call them to come to repentance so that they can receive the Holy Spirit. Through the power of that Spirit, their ability, stability and responsibility will increase. They will become personally accountable to God and a blessing to those around them.
Marshall Stiver
