You Are Accountable For Yourself
If I make wise choices in life then who will benefit? It is easy to look at myself as a husband and think that my wife will benefit. Or see myself as a father and think that my kids will benefit from my wisdom. It is easy to think that the people around me at work or my friends will benefit from the choices I make. But the problem with this thinking is that I tend to ignore the impact wisdom has on me. And this makes me less accountable.
Proverbs 9:12 — If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
The Bible says that I will benefit from my own wisdom and I will bear the burden of my folly if I deride others. Here is my tendency: if I focus on what other people think about me, I tend to completely ignore what I know about myself. When other people think I am wise — or smart, or funny, or witty — that makes me feel good. That makes me feel so good that I replace what I know about myself with those feelings of goodness.
Don’t miss this: you are accountable for yourself. At the end of the day, it does not matter what everyone else thinks about you. It matters what you know about yourself. It matters what God knows about you.
An excellent message, as always.
You have some uncanny timing with your choices of topics, in relation to situations I happen to be dealing with in my own life.
Good stuff, Z. Thanks.
Glad to hear it, Shane!