A is for accountability. Accountability is the condition of being required to justify one's decisions and actions. Your purpose has the ability to justify (Declare or make righteous in the sight of God) your actions. Being accountable to your purpose will reveal to you your true value, righteousness and virtue.
Today let's talk about how being accountable to your purpose reveals your value.
When you are accountable to your purpose, which is to glorify God, you make a decision to place your value in the hands of the one who created you. God and God alone, is the holder of your true value. Everytime you make a decision regarding your value, you will think twice before you attempt to gain value from other people, places, and things. You will shed the insecurity that comes with placing your value in the wrong hands, and your value will begin to be on display for you to see. You will know that your value comes from and through God.
Let’s take a look at how Sarai & Hagar’s lack of accountability to purpose affected how they valued themselves and others.
Look at this...
Genesis 16:3-6
Verse 3 (CSB): So Abram’s wife, Sarai, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband, Abram, as a wife for him. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years.
Sarai became accountable to her desires (like Eve) and decided to give her woman slave over to bear a child God promised Sarai, that she would bear. Doesn’t this sound similar to Eve eating the apple that God told her not to eat so that she could be more like God? Comparatively, Sarai attempted to have her woman slave bear a child that God said He would bring forth through her. Sarai was trying to do through Hagar what God said He would do through her. Sarai wanted to be God instead of wanting to be accountable to her purpose of glorifying God. As a result, (again similar to Eve) Sarai was distracted and became the distractor when she gave the woman slave over to her husband. Sarai allowed her feelings to justify her decisions and actions rather than her purpose, to glorify God.
Verse 4 (CSB): He slept with[a] Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her.
Hagar, Sarai’s woman slave, became pregnant and began to look down on Sarai’s value. It seemed as if Hagar may have placed her definition of value on a woman’s ability to have a child. Although having a child is a valuable ability,it is not the deciding factor in a woman/man’s value.Your value lies in the hands of the one who is able to justify the sum of your life and life itself. Your value is not based on YOUR ability or inability to perform in a particular season, position, or capacity. Your untarnishable value was placed in you before the foundations of the earth. So, the fear, pain, and insecurity that comes with having to qualify your value can be released. Hagar too became distracted and placed the justifier of value in the wrong hands. Hagar placed the qualifier of a person's value in the inconsistency of human abilities rather than the consistency of God’s word. The dangerous thing about finding someone “contemptible” and believing that you can establish their value is, that same judgment system you use on them you will soon use on yourself, or most likely you already are. This means that you are not only deducing or inflating their value, consequently, you are deducing or inflating your own as well. When this happens you are no longer making decisions or taking actions that are anchored in purpose but you are running with your own thoughts, emotions, feelings, and understanding.
Verse 5 (CSB): Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for my suffering![b] I put my slave in your arms,[c] and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her. May the Lord judge between me and you.”
Continuing the same pattern as Adam and Eve, Sarai attempts to place the blame of her actions on Abram instead of her own desires and lack of accountability to her purpose by placing her value in the wrong hands.
Verse 6 (CSB): Abram replied to Sarai, “Here, your slave is in your power; do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.
In Abram’s attempt to, “ Make it right”, ( which also lacked accountability to purpose) he gave Hagar back to Sarai who mistreated her so badly that Hagar ran away. Mistreat is defined as, “ to treat a person or an animal badly, cruelly, or unfairly”. In order to mistreat a person you must first misvalue them. I believe Sarai exaggerated Hagar’s value by exchanging the ability to bear children for the total amount of a person's value. Again, she became accountable to her thoughts and behaviors which then moved her to mistreat Hagar out of jealousy and envy as opposed to purpose.
Understand this...
All characters involved lacked accountability to their purpose, glorifying God, and part of it was because they did not understand their true value. Your value does not come from what is on you such as insecurity,doubt, pain, or fear. Your value comes from the one who created you and wants to reside in you; the one true living God. When you choose to rest in living your life accountable to your purpose, everything that tries to tarnish you will eventually be removed. As a matter of fact (and surely not fiction), you will have a CLAP BACK for everything that tried/tries to tarnish your value. Even if it is your own thoughts, behaviors, actions, and decisions. By resting in your purpose and by being accountable to glorifying God, you will see that your value comes from a power and standard beyond you-Purpose.
Here is some homework.
Here are four things you can do to R.E.S.T. in being accountable to your purpose so that you can begin to see your true value:
Reverence- Reset your current value system. Make a list of these two things and answer these questions:
What do I base my value off of?
What causes me to feel shame and guilt?
What causes me to feel jealous?
What is that thing that you say," If I just had x I would be good"?
How does God value me? ( Grab the bible girl)
Through Jesus, what does the bible say I deserve?
Through Jesus, why am I important?
Through Jesus, what am I worth?
Through Jesus, how can I now be useful?
Now, take these two lists and acknowledge where you have not observed God’s word as valuable. In prayer, ask God to help you to value His word and who He is over what you previously held valuable. Listen to this. It does not matter how long you have dealt with pride or insecurity, you can choose TODAY to reverence God’s value in you. This is an every moment decision, from sun up to sun down, day to day, you will have to not only acknowledge but also be the value that God placed in you. This does not happen by more doing. This happens by more resting in God’s value system and allowing yourself to become. Last thing, take your list of ‘ How does God value me?’ and turn those into your affirmations, why? Read this excerpt from Yes There’s More by R. Loren Sandford, MDiv. :
“Positive confession builds hope and trust into my own spirit, and therein lies the value. Proverbs 12:25, for instance, for instance, says, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad,” A similar verse is Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasent words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
2. Endure- Evaluate the value of being made in the image and likeness of the one true God. What does that mean to you? What does that mean about you? What does that mean about God? Remain accountable to purpose while transitioning out of your old value system.This looks like walking in your value although you may not see your value just yet. This looks like becoming the value systems you see Jesus describe in the bible. Sis, this is a process, do not get overwhelmed. This is going to take boldness, discipline, and a relationship with God.
3. Surrender- Exchange your old value system for seeing your value through the eyes of purpose, glorifying God. There is nothing more valuable than that. While feeling insecure, double, or pained at the thought of being accountable to your purpose, resist the urge to to be accountable to anything else that would attempt to devalue you. You are going to need some accountability partners! Why? This process that is going to include remaining accountable to purpose through the guilt, shame, anxiety and grief that come with exchanging an old value system for a purposed one. Can you imagine highly valuing something for so long only to realize that thing is no longer valuable? There is going to be a spiritual, mental, emotional withdrawal there. Just because you have the knowledge that this thing is no longer valuable does not mean your emotions and or mind will feel the same.
4. Test- Tap in! When R.E.S.T.ing gets overwhelming, lean into these 4 tips, be vulnerable with your community, and eliminate your consumption of people, places, and things that will feed into your old value system. Talk to God and let him talk back to you. Get creative, make music, draw, sew, cook, etc. Express what is happening in this process.
If you have any questions about the homework feel free to email me at purposefullytasha@gmail.com
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Purposefully,
Tasha
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