Welcome to the InTouch podcast [music] with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, December 30th. Social media often celebrates [music] people who make it on their own without depending on anyone else. But what if that [music] me only mindset is actually a recipe for disaster? Today we’ll [music] discover why God designed us to grow stronger together with the support of others.

>> Now what I want to talk about in this message is this whole idea of accountability. Now let’s just define what is accountability. Accountability in essence is responsibility. It’s sort of like a check and balance system uh in our life that really protects us from harm that we would do to ourselves or harm for example that someone else would do.

So accountability in its very essence is a protective measure. It’s it’s a way of life that God has given to all of us for many many reasons. Some of them we will talk about here. And what it means is simply this. We live out this accountability by being open and free and by being willing to tell the truth and to share with someone else what’s going on in our life.

And to be willing, listen, not only an encourager to other people, but that other people would encourage us. And not only that, that when we need to be brought to accountability about something and something needs to change in our life, that that is exactly what happened. And all of us have been there. We’ve all been in situations and circumstances where we may have said something and did something that we didn’t we knew that was not exactly right.

Then what happens? Somebody brings us to accountability. So here’s what I want you to see. There’s nothing wrong with accountability. Accountability is a gift. Accountability is the way God, one of the ways he chooses to protect us from ourselves. Because you remember what Paul said to the Galatians. He said, “Now don’t slip back into this slavery that you were in.