John Wesley's Accountability Questions

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?

3. Do I confidentially pass onto another what was told me in confidence?

4. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work , or habits?

5. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?

6. Did the Bible live in me today?

7. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?

8. Am I enjoying prayer?

9. When did I last speak to someone about my faith?

10. Do I pray about the money I spend?

11. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

12. Do I disobey God in anything?

13. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?

14. Am I defeated in any part of my life?

15. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrustful?

16. How do I spend my spare time?

17. Am I proud?

18. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisee who despised the publican?

19. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I going to do about it?

20. Do I grumble and complain constantly?

21. Is Christ real to me?

Part 2 More On “Accountability Groups”

"I call for accountability in this post, but a certain kind of accountability–the kind that forces us to reckon with the scandalous nature of God’s unconditional love for us because of Christ’s finished work on our behalf." Tullian Tchividjian

Click the link below to read part 2.

More On “Accountability Groups”

Reminders Are More Effective Than Rebukes

"Christian growth, in other words, does not happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners. I need my family and friends to remind me of this all the time."

Click the link below for the rest of the article.

Tullian Tchividjian "Reminders Are More Effective Than Rebukes"

Unity

So he sent his brothers off, and as they left, he called after them, "Don't quarrel along the way!" Genesis 45:24

This from O. Winslow "The Fullness Of Christ"

Are we not all of us, as saints of God, dependent upon Jesus? are not all of us hanging upon Jesus? do we not all receive from Jesus? The blood that cleanses us, the righteousness that justifies us, the grace that sanctifies us, the sympathy that comforts us, the hope that cheers us- is it not all derived from the fulness that is in Christ? Are not all clinging to that one dear Savior, depending on His finished work, and all drawing from His infinite resources? Oh, yes! Where do the saints of God the most frequently meet? Is it not at the feet of Jesus? Modes of worship may sunder us outwardly. A Liturgy may divide in form those who in heart draw near to the same God and Father. But here we all in spirit meet. The fountain from where we draw our stores of strength and grace, comfort, joy, and peace, attracts and unites us at the Savior's feet.

This ought to draw closer together in affection and sympathy the scattered, divided members of Christ's body, since they are all living on Jesus, drawing from Jesus, and alike indebted to Jesus. Thus, if through prejudice or preference, ecclesiastical polity or modes of religious worship sunder the saints of God from each other, here is that which attracts them to one spot, and binds them in one holy fellowship- a full Christ to whom all repair, and from whom all alike receive supplies, and who loves and blesses all alike. Journeying to one heavenly home, wearing the same robe of righteousness, clad in the same garments of salvation, sustained and nourished by the same spiritual supplies, should not these considerations raise us superior to sectarianism, prejudice, and harsh judgment? What have we that we have not received? Why should one brother boast against or judge another? "Of his fulness have all we received;" and all alike living upon Christ's fulness, nourished by His grace, kept by His power, soothed by His love, fed by His hand, guided by His counsel, and bound together in the same heart of God, supplies us with one of the strongest and most persuasive motives why we should love one another, and see that we do not "quarrel along the way."

Take a plunge brothers

"That Jesus should love such beings as us—that He should love us while we were yet sinners—that He should set His heart upon us, choose us, die for us, call us, and finally bring us to glory, knowing what we were, and what we would prove to be—oh, this is wondrous love indeed! Plunge into this fathomless, boundless Ocean of love, O sin-burdened one! It will cover all your sins, it will efface all your guilt; it will flood over all your unworthiness—and, floating upon its golden waves, it will gently waft you to the shore of eternal blessedness!" O. Winslow

O. Winslow

"Our sins must bring us to His blood, our condemnation must bring us to His righteousness, our corruptions must bring us to His grace, our wants must bring us to His fullness, our weakness must bring us to His
strength, our sorrow must bring us to His sympathy, and His own loveliness and love must attract us to Himself. And oh, in one hour, in a single transaction, in a lone sorrow, which has brought us to
Jesus, who can estimate how rapidly and to what an extent we have grown in a knowledge of His person and work, His character and love? I need not enlarge upon other branches of spiritual knowl-edge
which trial promotes—how it increases our personal intimacy with God as our loving Father and Friend; and how it opens our understanding to discern the deep things of God in the Scriptures, so that the Bible in the hour of affliction appears like a new revela-tion to us. Oh yes, times of trial are times of growth in experimental knowledge." O. Winslow

Spurgeon Quote

Satan always hates Christian fellowship; it is his policy to keep Christians apart. Anything which can divide saints from one another he delights in. He attaches far more importance to godly intercourse than we do. Since union is strength, he does his best to promote separation. 

C.H. Spurgeon

Sovereign, Good & Wise

Helpful reminders from Justin Buzzard:

#1. God is Sovereign
God is sovereign. Nearly every page of the Bible proclaims God’s absolute sovereignty, his supremacy and power over all things. Every detail of your life, the decisions of kings and presidents, the lifespan of sparrows, swine flu, today’s weather, and each passing second of human history takes place under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty. God is in control of everything. Nothing is outside of God’s control.
If a single circumstance in the universe could occur outside of God’s sovereign control, then God is not God and he cannot be trusted. But the Scriptures reveal that God is completely sovereign and can be completely trusted.
For I know that  the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps (Psalm 135:5-6).

#2 God is Wise
God is wise. Nearly every page of the Bible speaks of God’s infinite wisdom. God looks down upon the galaxies and upon your problems, plans, and prayers with perfect perspective. God is never confused, worried, or uncertain about the course of this world or the course of your future. God never makes mistakes. Yesterday God governed the universe with infallible wisdom. Today God is doing the same. Tomorrow and forever God will govern the galaxies and the ghettos with absolute wisdom.
If God were sovereign, but not wise, we could not trust him. We’d always be worried about him making a mistake, always thinking we know better than God. But from Genesis to Revelation we encounter the portrait of a completely sovereign and completely wise God who can be completely trusted.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and  do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways  acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes (Proverbs 3:5-7a).

#3 God is Good
God is good. Nearly every page of the Bible testifies that God is good, that God is loving. Not an inch of evil, deceit, or indifference dwells in God. God is love. God abounds in steadfast goodness, love, mercy, and grace. The Bible tells a single story of a good God taking relentless action to love, rescue, and bless people who don’t deserve it. God has always been good and always will be good. God’s goodness is not a mood. God’s goodness is not a mood that changes based upon your performance or circumstances, his loving goodness is an eternally-solid attribute that the fires of hell cannot melt.
If God were sovereign and wise, but not good, you could not trust him. People who are powerful and smart, but not loving, scare me. We’d live endlessly insecure lives if we knew God to be sovereign and wise, but not also good. But the Bible consistently presents a threefold picture of God as totally sovereign, wise, and good, as one who can be totally trusted.
The LORD is  gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is  good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made (Psalm 145:8-9).
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love,  not that we have loved God  but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

One Day - Beholding the Glory of God Clearly!

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,,
2 Cor 4: 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

John Owen said "consider the state of our minds in glory. The faculties of our souls shall be made perfect as all "the spirits of just men" (Heb 12:23). David said, "As for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness." Christ alone is the likeness and image of God. When we awake in the other world, with our minds purified and rectified, then we shall always be satisfied because we shall always be beholding him and his glory. Our minds and eyes will never get tired; we shall be like the four living creatures which "do not rest day or night, saying, "holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who was and is to come!" In heaven we shall be continually admiring and praising God in Christ, never needing any rest or even being interrupted. We shall be like angels."
"We shall always be with the Lord" 1 Thess 4:7
"Not limited by time or with no interruptions of our enjoyment of God in Christ".
"Neither will our vision be weakened by internal corruptions nor from and temptations. no doubts or fears or disturbing thoughts will have any place in heaven., but only that which will strengthen us and lead us to behold the glory of Christ with satisfied delight."

Spurgeon, "The Vanguard and Reward of the Church"

Spurgeon, "The Vanguard and Reward of the Church"

 

Your future path has all been marked out in
the great decrees of God's predestination.

You shall not tread a step which is not
mapped out in the great chart of God's decree.

Your 'troubles' have been already weighed
for you in the scales of his love.

Your 'labour' is already set aside for you
to accomplish by the hand of his wisdom.
Remember, you are not a child of chance.
If you were, you might indeed fear.
You will go nowhere next year
except where God shall send you.

You shall perhaps be thrust into the hot coals
of the fire, but God shall put you there.
You shall perhaps be much depressed in spirit,
but that heaviness shall be for your good,
and shall come from your Father.

You shall have the rod, but it shall not be the
rod of the wicked--it shall be in God's hand.

Oh! how comfortable the thought that EVERYTHING is in the hand
of God, and that all that may occur to me during the future years
of my life is foreordained and overruled by the great Jehovah,
who is my Father and my friend!

Gratitude to the Redeemer for the inestimable benefits he has procured for us

This from David Black (1762-1806)

Gratitude to the Redeemer for the inestimable benefits he has procured for us, should excite us to seek the things which are Jesus Christ's in preference to our own. Even Christ, we are told, 'pleased not himself' (Rom. 15:3). He sought not his own things, but the glory of his heavenly Father, and the happiness of his people. He 'became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich' (II Cor. 8:9): he emptied himself of his glory, though possessed of all the fullness of the Godhead, took upon him the degraded form of a servant, submitted to shame and sufferings, and death itself, that he might deliver us from endless inconceivable misery, and raise us to the possession of immortal glory and blessedness. In this view, how astonishing is the history of Christ's personal ministry! Well might it be said of him, that the zeal of God's house had eaten him up (John 2:17); for it was his food and drink to do the will of his heavenly Father, and to finish his work (John 4:34).

Often did he deny himself the ordinary refreshments of nature, that he might be serviceable to the souls of men. Upon one occasion, when faint and weary, he sat on Jacob's well, and asked of the woman of Samaria a little water to quench his thirst; denied, as he was at first, this trifling blessing, he seems, from the conversation that follows, to have forgotten his thirst in his ardent concern for the salvation of this poor woman's soul (John 4:9-26). And once and again we read of his retiring to a mountain to pray, and spending whole nights in prayer, after having employed the day in public instruction and acts of beneficence (Mark 6:40, Luke 6:12).

What a pattern to his followers! And how powerful a motive likewise to deny ourselves for him, who, for our sakes, labored, and watched, and wept, and prayed, and at last shed his precious blood! How poor the returns which we can possibly make for his marvelous love to us! But surely, if one spark of gratitude remain in our breasts, we cannot fail to judge with the apostle, that "Christ's love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: if One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised." (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

We must be irresistibly led by this endearing consideration to seek the things which are Jesus Christ's, accounting the honor of his name, and the advancement of his kingdom in the world, of infinitely greater consequence, and far more desirable than any little separate interest of our own. Said the captive Jews in Babylon, "If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!" (Psalm 137:4-6). In like manner will the pious Christian say, "If ever I forget your dying love, O bleeding Immanuel! if ever I lose the sense of my infinite obligations to your matchless grace, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth! Sooner let me die than not live to you; sooner let me lose the powers of my rational nature, than fail to employ them in your service. Henceforth your glory shall be my constant aim; your will my only rule; and the advancement of your kingdom, in the particular station in which they providence has placed me, the great business of my life."

Nourish, my Christian friends, such sentiments as these. Muse upon the great things which God has done for your souls, until the fire of divine love burn within you, and you feel yourselves constrained to say, "Lord, what will you have us to do — to be — or to suffer? We are ready, through your all-powerful grace assisting us, not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 21:13). We are ready to renounce kindred, country, friends, comforts — everything, in short, which the world holds dear, at the command of him whose we are, and to whom we owe our everlasting all. Only let the grace of Christ be sufficient, and his strength made perfect in our weakness, and love will make pain easy, and labor delightful."