Self-watch/Accountability

Watch, for water has now entered the vessel of the Church, and the vessel is in perilous straits. For all we Irish, inhabitants of the world's edge, are disciples of Saints Peter and Paul and of all the disciples who wrote the sacred canon by the Holy Ghost, and we accept nothing outside the evangelical and apostolic teaching...

  - Columbanus, Letter to Pope Boniface (Irish, 7th century)

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

  - Galatians 2.11

We cannot grow, and we may well be in danger of falling into sin, without meaningful accountability. We are one another's keepers in the Lord, and each of us must see to it that there are people in our lives who have a right to know our soul and to speak to it forthrightly at all times.

Columbanus assumed that the Pope would understand that when he wrote to him about the sorry condition of the Catholic churches in Gaul and the even sorrier priests and bishops who oversaw them. We see how he made his standard of judgment crystal clear - the Word, and only the Word, nothing more or less.

It was on the basis of the Word that Paul confronted Peter at Antioch, thus pulling the apostle back from a compromise of faith as he was seeking to please men rather than God. We all need people in our lives like Columbanus and Paul.

And we need to be willing to be such people to others as well. But let's make certain that we're grounded in the Word of God, dutiful in our service for His Kingdom, and careful to confess and repent of our own sins as often as the Lord makes them known to us. We must be examples of desiring to be pure before the Lord before we try to help others along the path toward that ideal.

If you're watching over your own soul alone, that is, if you have no one close enough to you to keep you on the path of righteousness through encouragement, example, instruction, admonition, and even rebuke, then you need to find someone - or some friends - like this right away.

We must be accountable to one another if we're going to be faithful to the Lord.

Today at The Fellowship of Ailbe

Kudos for the creationist science teachers of the land, who are holding forth for the true account of the origins of the cosmos. Read about them in today's ReVision.

Don't forget to download your copy of the brochure for the Christian Literacy Campaign. Let's do all that we can to encourage others to take up the discipline of serious reading in the things of the Kingdom.

If you'll forward today's Crosfigell to a friend, and include me in the address, I'll follow-up and encourage your friend to subscribe and become a part of this growing fellowship. Thanks in advance.

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.