Christian Commitment
Tuesday 17 July 2007 at 06:57 am In Matthew 5:33- 37 Jesus said:33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. (NKJ)
Jesus was teaching us not to take oaths. He said why swear to something you have no control over. How can you swear on your life when your life is God’s hand? When people in the apartments often want me to believe something the use the phrase, I swear to God. Jesus told us not to swear to God, probably because he was tired and hurt of all the oaths made in God’s name that are not kept.
Jesus also goes on to tell us that if our Yes will mean Yes and our No mean No then we no longer have a need for oaths. When a Christian tells you something then you should say to yourself I know they will keep their word. The sad part is as Christians we ignore this teaching, as we do much of the teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. I deal with people in the church every week telling me they will do something and then not keeping their word.
In multi-housing ministry it is critical that we our Yes mean Yes. People get lied to all the time. They are given empty promises every day. One of the things that set us apart from the world is that mean what we say!
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