56 The Relevance of God’s Will: Accountability

Remember! When I refer to person in the Godhead in any blog, I am referring either to singular person (one-of-three) or to the collective person (three-in-one) of the Triune.

Quotes I feel compelled to share just keep popping up this week—like this one:

By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. —Albert Einstein—

Everything I blog is cut from the stuff of this quote from Albert Einstein. It is how I think, in spades (a Bridge term). Einstein uses the word duty. That word has always resonated with me.

Do you remember this quote?

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can! —Ralph Waldo Emerson—

The Einstein quote is a new one to me. I first saw the Emerson quote in Prep School. Like striking the C note on a piano tunes my voice, the word duty always tunes my being. I love the idea of duty. Everything I am rallies around it. It is through the word duty that I first appreciatively approached the term accountability. Accountability is an honorable thing, dear tour companion. I respect accountability (a form of owning up to the truth, you know) and those who practice holding themselves accountable.

It’s the least one can do, I think—to embrace accountability. It’s amazing how many people disagree with me on that idea. Yet I try to be a 100% practitioner of personal accountability and when I succeed (which is not 100% of the time, and I refuse to admit what the probable true percent of success I achieve is; though I will admit the actual percent is gravely less than 100), I have found the results amazingly profitable in my understanding of the boundaries of liberty.

Giving credit where credit is due is one huge aspect of the accountability I regularly discipline myself to practice. I truly enjoy the accomplishments of other people and admire them for their abilities. I’m not perfect at this, but am no slacker either.

God, as author of all things, wills accountability be a part of our lives as it is a part of the life of the Godhead, and especially wills giving credit where credit is due (authors know to give credit where credit is due, dear reader).

Accountability promotes respect as an act of the will as the critical foundation of attitudes and behaviors, making it akin to agape love, love as an act of the will.

The Godhead wills respect for the persons of the Godhead and for all persons.

Isaiah 17:7 And in that day a man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.”( Hebrew Verb, rââh, Strong’s #7200, [ have] respect)

James 2:1-9 Beware of Personal Favoritism (Gr. Verb, epiblepo, Strongs # 1914, to have respect of persons, [verse 3] NKJV)

To be continued . . .