If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John1.7

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. James 4.16

It is precious to be able to walk in the light, to walk in transparency, to walk in vulnerability with one another. But what does it mean to walk in the light with one another?

It’s being able to be real with one another without fear of being rejected or wounded.  To be able to be totally honest with each other.  To be able to share the things you are struggling with as well as the joys of your life.  To be able to confess your sins to one another and be held up and ministered to by prayer. To be able to speak truth into one another’s lives, knowing it will be heard and heeded without offence being taken.  Not only to speak encouragement but to be able to correct when necessary, to allow the sword of the Spirit to pierce our hearts through one another without it spoiling the unity of our relationships.  To be able to weep together in brokenness as He does His beautiful work of purifying our lives.  To be able to love unconditionally because we walk in His love in relationship with others.  To be able to give and receive His love in such a way that all our sins are covered.  To walk like this puts us in a place of invulnerability to the enemy’s accusations because we walk in freedom from hidden sin, freedom from condemnation, freedom from shame.  When we walk in the light, Satan no longer has any power to torment us. For we are hidden in Him Who is light and Satan cannot stand to be in the light. So we are safe!

So how do we get to this place of transparency with each other?

It begins with the willingness to risk opening your life to others, the willingness to make yourself answerable to another for your actions and attitudes. 

Proverbs 27.17 as iron sharpens iron so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

See also Pro 27.6, faithful are the wounds of a friend, 13.18, he who regards a rebuke will be honoured.

Do we desire to be sharpened?  Are we willing to heed rebuke? Or do we allow pride to get in the way?  Do we take offence when a friend speaks hard words into our lives or do we allow them to cut out the wrong thing that is within us and to bring freedom? If we are willing for these things to be used by God to refine us it will produce strength in our walk with God. 

Ecc 4.9-12 says, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour.  For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone?  Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not easily broken.

It requires going deeper if you are really to benefit.  God doesn’t want us being superficial in our relationships.  His purpose in this is to grow us, to purify us, to build us up, to make us strong, and to give us a unity that is unshakeable.  He wants us to be able to hold up each other’s hands. He wants us to learn to rejoice when the other rejoices and to weep when the other weeps.  He wants us to be real with one another. He longs for us to strip off the masks we wear and to let our imperfections be exposed for then He can deal with them and set us free.  We all wear masks to some degree.

Make godly decisions about who to go deep with. Don’t pick people like the ones described in Pro 6.16-19 – the proud, the liar, the ones that shed innocent blood, the evil hearted, evil doers, false witnesses, those who sow discord.  Choose to walk with those who are wise so the result is growth in righteousness. The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and hypocrisy.  Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3.17-18. Walking in accountability with such people works peace in our lives, as those things which cause conflict with the kingdom within us are dealt with.

Paul talks about the war within himself between the desire for good and the old nature that wants to please itself still.  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (Romans 7.23) God can use those we are in accountability with as peacemakers in our lives as they discern the things we are struggling with and speak truth which brings release. 

Transparency makes us vulnerable – we can hide nothing.  We need to be sensitive, to have hearts that are soft and open, that can be wounded by personal sin.  We have to be willing to be shown that we are wrong. There is a risk to being transparent and vulnerable – we can get badly hurt if this relationship is abused by those we walk with. But if we really desire to walk in the light with one another, we will work through these things and come to a place of healing and trust and a whole relationship again.

We can be wounded just by being confronted with our sins by another but the Word tells us that the wounds of a friend can be trusted. Pro 27.6. Pride rises in us so easily but God desires us to be clothed in humility so we can receive correction and rebuke openly through others. These are the wounds that cut to the heart but bring life and healing.  Like the way the Lord wounds described by Hosea 6.1-2. “Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.” He disciplines those He loves and discipline is painful but bears good fruit.

Past hurt can prevent vulnerability.  We build walls of self-protection and these need to be demolished.  We lose our ability to trust and our willingness to risk being hurt again.  We can walk in fear and so hold back from the sort of relationship God is wanting to give us so we can walk in the fullness of His light.  If we are insecure about who we are, and who we are in Him, or about the relationship we have with those we are seeking to be accountable with, or about the genuiness of their love for us, we won’t be able to make ourselves vulnerable. 

Transparency doesn’t come lightly.  Relationships like these are precious and special and take time and risk to develop.  But as we take little risks and begin to open up to others and find only unconditional love and acceptance, instead of judgement, God will begin to pull down our walls and heal those things that have kept us bound and bring us to that deeper place of openness that He is seeking for us to live in.

It becomes a choice we need to make, a choice to walk in vulnerability and in transparency, which will bring safety and security.  Self-protection never works!  Are we willing to become open to others, to strip off the masks and become real?  Are we willing to ask Him to help us into that place?  Are we willing to ignore the hurt that might come our way and continue to press in, in order to come into the degree of light he would have us live in?  Light casts no shadow – He is light, and in Him is no darkness.  He is calling us into that perfection.  He wants no darkness in us.  Darkness brought into the light dissipates.  The light chases it away!

We have to have a teachable spirit if accountability is to be effective.  We can apply what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Tim 3.16-17 about scripture to accountability relationships. Just as scripture is profitable for reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, so can be the words of those we trust speaking into our lives.  We need the critique of others for as Jeremiah said, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer 17.9). Others can often more clearly see what is in our hearts than we can.

Honesty is at the heart of all working accountability. If we lie, we gain nothing from this relationship.  And lying is much more than simply telling a lie.  Consider exaggeration, broken promises, flattery, giving a misleading impression, stretching the truth, insincerity, hypocrisy, telling only part of the truth, half-truths. The masks we wear, the importance of our outward appearance, these are untruths presented to the world. What is inside needs to line up with what we seem to be on the outside.  God sees our hearts.  God desires truth in our inmost parts. It’s truth that holds together the armour of God.  Jesus is Truth!  Are we prepared to be totally honest with others?  To walk in truth no matter what it costs us?  To have our character reflect this aspect of the character of God?

We are to speak the truth in love Eph 4.15.  Love is the crux – we have to love one another the way God loves us. If we are walking in love, we will be free to be honest, and able to share the depths of our hearts as well as to confront that which we see in each other that is not of God.  We will speak the truth in love that sets free and brings healing. Words spoken in love bring only the wounding that heals whereas words spoken without love come in judgement and bring condemnation and death instead of life.

All relationships are built on trust and trust comes out of walking in truth. We need to make a commitment to maintain confidentiality. What is shared in private is not to be shared anywhere else. A relationship of accountability has to be a totally safe place. Trust is precious and not to be betrayed.

We need to be good listeners – this is a key to bearing one another’s burdens. Gal 6.2.  Listening is often so much more helpful than speaking!

Listen not just to the one sharing with you, but listen to God too.  And let God do the work He wants to do in the burdens being offloaded.

If we need to confront sin in another it has to be done in the right way and from the right motives – LOVE.  Gal 6.1-2 and James 5.20. We are to restore in gentleness!   We must only speak in humility, to support, in a non-judgemental way.  We need to pray much and search our own hearts as to our motives before we speak. Often God just wants us to pray – His Spirit will deal with what we see in each other.  A wise man I heard teach says to speak to the treasure in the person – when you do so the treasure rises up and the junk disappears.  Ask God to show you how to turn the negative things you see in someone else’s life into treasure, and speak words that will build up instead of tearing down. Search your own heart too, and ask God to search it, for often the things we sense in someone else are really the problems of our own hearts.  Are we willing to allow God to turn that searchlight into our own hearts? 

Accountability is so much more than the confessing of sins and the challenging one another to walk in holiness. This relationship can be the support and the strength of our lives in our pressing in to know God more.

God doesn’t mean us to live in isolation spiritually – He made us to be His body, His family, to stand alongside one another, to build one another up!

He doesn’t mean us to fight alone – two put to flight so many more than one alone. We don’t walk alone in our struggles, or in the hard places, and there are those who will rejoice with us too in the good things God does. We are a body knit together.  We are living stones making up the temple of the Lord.  Accountability becomes the process through which the fit is made more perfect! 

The other side of accountability affects the world! 

Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. Matthew 5.16

Arise shine for the light has come! Isaiah 60.1

The gentiles shall come to your light. Isaiah 60.3

This is the outworking of walking in the light.  We firstly walk in the light, in accountability with one another, to keep our hearts pure, so our relationship with God is in order, and we can walk in intimacy with Him and with our brothers and sisters. Jesus said the world would know us by our love and by our unity. 

Secondly we walk in the light to be light to the world, that those who do not know Him might see Him in us.  We are to shine in the darkness, our lights not hidden, but laid bare for all to see.  And just as bugs are attracted to light, so will unbelievers be attracted to the light they see in us.

We, who live in the shadow of His wings live in His light, become His light.

If we are half hearted then our light grows dim. If we live with junk undealt with in our lives, our light is dimmer than it should be.

Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12.1-2

If we run with the world, if we are like the world, if we think the world’s way and act the way the world does, then our light is also dim.  We are no different in appearance to those around us – like a light that is hidden or a light that is turned off. There is nothing in us to attract others to Jesus. 

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the father but of the world.  1 John2.16

Jesus is the out-raying of the divine nature, the outshining of God’s character.  He is the sole expression of the glory of God, the light being, the out raying of the divine, and he is the perfect imprint and very image of God’s nature… Heb 1.3 amplified bible

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person niv.

We are being conformed to His image.

The fruit of the Spirit is taking root in our lives and growing.

The things of the old man are being uprooted and his character is being reproduced in us. We are imperfect as yet imprints of God’s nature, but still we shine with a measure of His glory.

And we are being changed from glory to glory as we behold him. 2 Cor3.18

But we all, as with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of God.

His glory shines out of us. Cf Moses in the previous verses – how his face shone because he had been in the presence of God, talking face to face.

So his face needed covering, the light of the glory was so bright.

2 Cor 4.1-7 this is the treasure that shines out of our earthen vessels!

His glory shines out and impacts the world.

So let us walk in the light as He is in the light, let us have that degree of fellowship with one another that gets rid of hidden darkness, and let us shine His glory out into the world.