Who wants to be held responsible for something gone wrong? Don’t all raise your hands at once! I mean, we’ve got the mojo working when we talk about responsibility and accountability but when it comes time to put our money where our mouth is, often times, we like to hold others accountable without the responisibility of ourselves…

Take for instance our current government of Canada… Yes, they have passed their “Accountability Act” and lowered our National Tax to 6% from 7% just like they said they would but when it came down to action about the environment or keeping their promise NOT to tax Income Trusts, well, let’s just say their responsibility was to hold the previous government accountable for their failings…

Let’s move to the Church… It’s easy to proclaim the Word of God as Holy and Righteous but to actually live out what it commands of our own God given free will? Well, let’s just say that you’d have an easier time figuring out how to get the caramel inside of a Caramilk candy bar… (by the way, they just freeze the caramel and drop it inside the chocolate mold)

A group of Church leaders took it upon themselves to get rid of their pastor… they ridiculed him, gossipped behind his back, turned everyone in the Congregation against him and publicly assasinated his character before declaring that he needs to die… They did everything they could just to get him out and in the end, when governments and other leaders condemned them, they still went ahead and called for his removal… Who were they responsible to? The leaders claimed it was for the liberation of the people but it was just their way of avoiding the responsibility for their own actions.

The story just mentioned happened to our Lord Jesus Christ (John ch.18-19), but would it surprise you to know that this recently happened in a Chruch?  These situations can be avoided through proper understanding of what God has called us to and what he has asked us to be responsible for… it’s not to tell someone what they “Should/Shouldn’t” do but to stay on track with God and his Will for our own life through prayer and his Grace.

This is an encouragement to all that first and foremost, we are accountable to the Lord… not to please men… if God has called you to be a school teacher, be blessed in your responsibilty and be blessed in your accountability to God who placed you there… the same goes for the Home Contractor, Business professional, medical professional, missionary, law enforcement officer..etc.  “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.” - 1 Corinthians 7:23-24

Amen

Pastor Naoto Yuki

Everyone’s an expert… or so it seems…

What does experience in life really mean?  If someone has 50 years of experience, are they qualified to tell someone what they “should” be or “shouldn’t” be doing? If a person has lived in a country longer than another, do they have a right to tell that other what they, “should” be or “shouldn’t” be doing in that country?

The moment we enter into a Should/Shouldn’t statement, we are entering into a judgmental mind set, a place where we begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Romans 12)… Have you ever overheard a conversation where a mother of an 8 year old tells another mother of a 4 year old what they should be doing in their child’s development instead of encouraging them with positive reinforcement?

A funny way of seeing this is when a dog meets a cat and upon hearing the cat purrr and meow, the dog interupts and tells the cat, you SHOULD be saying, Woof! and/or Bark!

As a pastor, I can’t count the number of times someone scolded me because from their experience, a Pastor SHOULD do this and do that and SHOULDN’T do this and do that… upon this happening, I always make sure to ask God if His calling in my life has changed because those people could just be giving me a Prophetic Word from God!

Wherever you are in life, I encourage you to take a moment when you are tempted to “Should/Shouldn’t” someone because the Word is clear,

“…Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” - Romans 12:3-5

“The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” - 1 Corinthians 12:27

God commands us to look at ourselves and carry our own load first, because God knows that we could easily walk into judgment, which goes against Him in every way… “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you…Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:1-4

It’s so easy to forget that EVERYONE on this planet was “fearfully and wonderfully made”-Psalms 139:14 by the Love of the Heavenly Father

Pastor Naoto Yuki

Tomorrow: Err…repsonsibility