Hold Me Accountable

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.  A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock.  The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. John 10:11-13

At my job, I have thirteen team members reporting to me.  Each one of them has a distinct personality, and I love having one on one meetings with them.  There are times I need to have difficult conversations when they are not performing to my expectations, but then there are fun times where we learn a bit about each other.  It is the latter that makes me work harder for them.  I want them to succeed not only in their work but also in their lives.  Hearing them when times are good is such a blessing to me!  Talking them through challenges is tiring but not in the sense of bitterness or not wanting to deal with them.  Instead, it is more along the way of how I can best help them.  What words of encouragement can I give them to make their life better?  How can I motivate them?  Who could I connect them with to help with their situation?  The mental gymnastics of answering those questions are exhausting, and there is a sense of accomplishment when we are successful in finding an answer.  When that occurs, there is this feeling of joy that comes over me.  At that moment, I hear a voice in my head saying, “This is what you were meant to do.”  It is the same voice that talked to me saying, “Come home,” before I gave my life to Christ.  Now this by no means is equating myself to Jesus Christ being the Good Shepherd.  Not even in the slightest bit.  It is my listening to His voice, acting with the Spirit He placed in me, and holding myself accountable to God.

We are held to a higher standard of accountability as followers of Jesus Christ.  When we think about being accountable, we often confuse it with being responsible.  There is a reason they are different words.  The word responsibility means the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.  Accountability is the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions.  As I read those two definitions one might extrapolate from today’s verses that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is accountable, while a hired hand is responsible.  That is somewhat true, but it goes a bit further than that.  The reality is the hired hand is not responsible at all.  They might be responsible for allowing the wolf to attack, but that would mean they were not responsible for protecting the sheep at all.  In their mind, they were only responsible for ‘watching’ and not ‘caring’ for them.  The good shepherd is not just responsible for the sheep.  He goes far beyond that.  Jesus said, “The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.” Thus, it is as if they are an extension of Him.  That is what accountability sounds like.  It also sounds familiar to Jesus’ answer to the question of the Greatest Commandment when He said, “A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:39) You see, Jesus has a greater expectation of us.  We can neither defer to others nor ignore it.  It is ours to own, stand up, and be accountable.  Not looking like we are the hired hand.  Instead, it is to be present for those in need and love others as we love ourselves.

To be a follower of Christ is a labor of love.  It is what we are meant to do.  This does not mean we be like someone else.  It means taking the best of us and offering it up in an act of servitude both to God and for His Glory.  Nothing says that clearer than this:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.  If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.  And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?  Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

That is as the younger generation would say ‘real talk.’  Let us take up the cross and be accountable to Jesus just as He voluntarily gave His life for us.  What can you give more of yourself for God?  Who can help you become more accountable to God?  My prayer is that when God presents an opportunity to be His representative, we answer, “Yes, you can hold me accountable.”  Amen.