Do you have an accountability partner to keep you from slipping in the area of morality? (133-4)

Leaders have integrity when their words match their actions. Many leaders have diluted or destroyed their effectiveness through immorality. Read Proverbs 5:1-23.

My mom had a thousand sayings. One I remember well was spoken after I discovered mom doing something I was forbidden to do (which didn’t happen often). Mom said, “Son, do what I say not what I do.” Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, who was given wisdom directly from God that no other leader was given before him, wrote Proverbs 5. He did not hold back when it came to warning his people about adultery. He is so strong as to say in verse 21, “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths.” Yet when Solomon’s life is examined he didn’t match his actions with his words.

The Bible tells us Solomon had over 700 wives and hundreds of concubines (a woman who lives with a man and has a sexual relationship with him but is not married to him). Even the wisest leader in the world will be brought down if their actions do not match their words. According to 1 Kings 11:4, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God.”

How many leaders have ruined their lives and damaged the lives of others through immorality? Character has become a crucial issue today precisely because of the number of leaders in politics, business and the religious world that have fallen morally and harmed those that trusted them.

Leaders need to remember that they influence many others beyond themselves; they never fail in a vacuum nor only harm themselves by their actions. Are you taking steps such as having an accountability partner to keep from slipping in the area of morality? Wise leaders not only give good advice, they heed it themselves.

Mark 14:55, “The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put Him to death, but they did not find any.”