When we have people around us, who love us and care for us, and are willing to speak into our lives, it benefits us. One of God’s greatest means of grace in our lives is the accountability and encouragement from other believers. Simply, put we can’t see our own face, so we need those around us who can. Here’s a quote from the Journey to the Cross devotional:
_______

We need others to remind us of the gospel, to speak the truth in love for our edification. We must be grounded in community if we are to be rooted in the gospel. In other words, the very people from whom we are trying to hide our true selves, God has ordained to help us see.

To use Dan Allender’s phrase, “You can’t see your own face.” That is, when God shines light on our lives, as we have been talking about, we become visible to others. We desperately need them to tell us what they see, good and bad. It’s not that other people’s opinions are absolute truth, but neither are our isolated opinions of ourselves. To be humble means we are willing to be seen as we are, by God and man. Our pride resists this kind of exposure, but it takes humility to become humble.

Roy Hession comments: “We cannot be in the light with God, and in the darkness with our brother … We must be willing to know ourselves for what we really are, and we must be willing for our brother to know this as well. We will not hide ourselves from those with whom we should be in fellowship. We will not cover our faults. We will speak the truth about ourselves with them. We will be ready to give up our spiritual privacy. We will not keep bad feelings in our hearts about another person.”