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James 5:19
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

The days of holding each other accountable seems to be falling by the wayside. Lifting each other up and encouraging each other is so important and so is acknowledging sin and struggles in our lives. It is good to surround yourself with people who will encourage you to walk right and push you to be your best. I have been watching a show whose characters are old English Royalty and it occurred to me the other day as I was watching an episode that there was truly something to be said for the way older people held the younger to a certain standard and as the standard slipped away so did their way of life. It is our responsibility to help each other be all we can be for God, not in a judgmental way but in a godly, encouraging way. If you are just doing it to point out sin in someone else’s life without any real good intentions, or if you are doing it to take the light off what you are doing yourself you need to get your own life in order before you worry about someone else’s issues! (An example of doing the right thing would be when you know for a fact someone is committing adultery and with all of todays diseases out there you need to pray about going to someone about it to protect the spouse ~that is for a good reason! Be careful though, because sad to say some spouses don’t want to know ~ it is such a touchy area that I don’t fully understand because trust me, I would want to know!) Hidden sins never bring about restoration! Accountability is what helps us grow into all we can be for God and we should want that for each other!

Restoration is so important! We shouldn’t just throw someone out of churches without attempting to bring them back to all that God created them to be. Now, we know there are many cases when some people just simply do not want to be “restored”, they have chosen to live in sin and they have no desire to repent or change and you aren’t going to force restoration on them, nor should you want to, but restoration should be offered. If you notice this verse says, “and someone brings him back….”, in other words someone has made a point of acknowledging what is going on, I think too often these days we think if we just ignore what we know is going on it will go away. There has to be a plan and there needs to be repentance, if they are not willing to fully give their hearts and lives over totally to God and be held accountable then obviously restoration isn’t going to happen, but there are a lot of people out there who would love to have someone walk with them and help them have victory in their lives, they just don’t know how to get there without losing everything and ending up without anyone to show them the way. A clear sign of someone who truly wants restoration is usually when that person confesses before they are “caught”. Whatever the case may be, our goal should always be to help each other grow into all we are called and created to be by God and that requires a lot of love, forgiveness, accountability and leading by walking in God’s light and truth. God loves us and wants us to experience all He has for us and that will only come by following Him!

Quote:
“Recognizing a problem or weakness is the first step in remedying it.” Donald Laird