Back to Back

Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

The hardest time of my life took place in the 7th grade. I transferred from a private academy to public school. At the same time, we moved our church membership from a small, country church to a larger church in town. Needless to say, I wasn’t prepared for all of the changes that took place in my life. In the blink of an eye, things were different everywhere I looked. It got so bad that I started worrying about everything to the point where I couldn’t go to sleep at night. I dreaded going to school everyday. So every night, fear would overcome me. I would lay in bed sometimes to 3 AM, worrying about what might happen at school the next day. Saturday nights, I would basically do the same thing. I did not like going to the church we were attending. It seemed so big, and I felt so out-of-place there. My life was pure misery. I wanted to give up on life. I was hurting and didn’t know what to do.

Then, my 8th grade year came. I expected the same thing to start happening—a year of misery. But God sent me one of the greatest blessings of my life. He sent me my three best friends in the world: Rocky, Paul, and Tom. From my 8th grade year to our senior year in high school, we became closer than brothers—inseparable. When one of us would fall, there would be three others there to pick the other one up. Proverbs 18:24 is true: “There are ‘friends’ who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.” That’s why, during JR and SR high, none of us ever got high, drank alcohol, or had premarital sex. Even to this day, we are still close: our spouses are friends, my kids call them “uncles,” and we have “family” reunions once or twice a year.

The reason so many of us don’t make a difference for the Kingdom of God isn’t due to a lack of intelligence, but due to a lack of surveillance. Who is watching your back? You can wear all of God’s spiritual armor as described in Ephesians 6 and still be defeated, because no one is watching your back during the battles of everyday life.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 reads, “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

You and I need people in our life who will watch our backs spiritually speaking. We also need to be willing to do the same thing for others. We all have weaknesses and temptations. Having someone to keep you spiritually accountable is the one thing that is keeping many of you from breaking out and making a huge, lasting impact for Christ at school, work, and home. One of our goals as Believers should be for each of us to have an accountability partner and to be one for someone else. Start something new and great in your life. Start a new spiritual habit of accountability with another Believer today!

Read more!