Text: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Memory verse:
“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭18‬:‭1‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Evangelist Billy Graham was generally acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries. Among many reasons for his decades-long success was his early decision to hold himself to a high and rigorous standard of accountability.
What is accountability? It’s giving others the freedom to help you order your private and public lives. It is giving someone the right to call you to order on matters that border on your private and public lives. This is what Paul meant here, “submitting to one another in the fear of God.” ‭‭(Eph‬ ‭5‬:‭21‬).
Billy Graham submitted himself to a team of three other men, namely Grady Wilson, Cliff Barrows, and George Beverly Shea, with whom he stayed in close, strong friendship and relationship all of his life.
During a meeting in a hotel room in Modesto, California in 1948, the team agreed to what was later called the “Modesto Manifesto,” an agreement that none of the men would make the mistake other ministers had made so often — relating with sex, money and fame. This principled foundation protected Billy Graham from scandal and enabled the kind of success witnessed throughout the world for an entire generation.
It is important to note that, though the “Modesto Manifesto” of 1948 was a verbal agreement among the men, that is, nothing was ever written down, yet it was respected among the friends. It was a friendship rooted in the idea that believers in Jesus Christ ought to maintain the same devotion to each other that God has with us.
Billy Graham and his friends were able to overcome those common temptations with humble and wise boundaries, which accountability generates. In contrast and according to our texts, a man who walks alone or isolates himself is not accountable and is liable to fall. Like Howard Hendricks also said, “A man not in an accountable relationship is a moral accident waiting to happen.”
Friends, true and godly friends, are accountability partners. For accountability to take place, there must be a mutual relationship, trust, and honesty. That is, friends must be open and not hide anything. Remember that accountability cannot be forced. Have you given your friends permission to ask you the hard questions about any area of your life without feeling that they are poking their noses into your private affairs?

Prayer points
1. Father, let me never walk alone or live an isolated life but help me to develop accountable friendship in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, help me to learn from the experiences of others and keep me from scandals and from falling, in Jesus’ name.

Today’s declarations
1. God uses my accountability relationships to keep me from falling and scandals.
2. To have an accountability friendship, I give my friends permission to ask hard questions about any area of my life.

Contact: pastor@thf.org.ng