Charis

just one more before I go out…
from http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=6512
Chuck Colson “When Ego Trumps Accountability”

We all have, I discovered, an infinite capacity for self-justification. I knew I could do no wrong, and I could persuade anyone I was right in any event. Well, I went to prison.

People who are successful are particularly vulnerable. Nobody tells us “no,” and if we think we’re doing the right thing, as Wolfowitz thought he was, we are really then in peril.

That’s why, after I got out of prison I committed to always have a group of people I respected around me and to submit to them for any major decision I had to make. For thirty years of ministry, this has protected me from myself.

I’ve seen Christian leaders, sadly, without accountability, and often they fall hard. Everybody, at every level of life, needs an accountability group—people you can turn to and lean on and trust yourself to. The heart is infinitely deceitful.

I suspect that the world will continue to produce men like Wolfowitz—brilliant men who go astray because they’re so confident of their own abilities, they become blind.

The Wolfowitz story is a cautionary tale. Every Christian in authority, from a parent to a boss in the office, needs to find people who care more about God than our egos and who will tell us whether what we’re doing is advancing the Kingdom or our vanity—no matter how great we think we are.

I think there is too much “authority” talk in the church to help Christian men struggling with porn. I think we could use more “accountability” talk.