Let Your ‘Yes’ Be ‘Yes’, & Your ‘No’ Be ‘No’

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<Jesus said,> “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”’ (Matthew 5:37)

As part of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus gave us pretty simple instructions with regards to promises, or oaths – don’t make them.  If we make oaths, then we become accountable to God and if we break them, for any reason, intentional or not, we sin against Him, regardless who we make the oath to.  If we make an oath that goes against the Word of the Lord, we sin against Him.  Before we commit to ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, we must be responsible to ensure the answer is in accordance to God’s will and His precepts; thus we are also responsible to those people we have made oaths to previously. 

A spouse makes an oath to the one they married, for example, to be responsible in family matters.  The US Congress all swore an oath to preserve and protect the US Constitution.  A pastor or an elder takes an oath to accurately communicate the precise Word of Jesus (aka, the Scriptures) to others, and to serve others within the confines of the Word.  The progressive church fails in their oath when they allow secularism to creep in to accommodate people (in essence, saying ‘Yes’ to sin).  Congress fails in their oath to ‘serve and protect the Constitution and their constituents’ by overspending your tax dollars (saying ‘Yes’ to sin).  The President fails in his oath when he does not enforce the laws of our nation and allows the southern border to be wide open (saying ‘Yes’ to sin). 

While there are Righteous things to say ‘Yes’ to, it is also the easy way out to avoid confrontation.  ‘Yes, even though you’re living in sin you can serve in the church’ or ‘Yes, we’ll give you billions of dollars to help you, Mr. Foreign Dictator – but we won’t help our own citizens who need assistance’ is to avoid confrontation and look good in the eyes of man.  God wants us to look good in His eyes; we need to keep the oaths we’ve made, and say ‘Yes’ to keeping them, and say ‘No’ to those things that go against them.

It’s OK to say ‘No’.  God says ‘No’ quite often to prayers He receives, for good reason – there are prayers made that either go against His Word or that He knows providing the request would take us away from Him. It’s also OK to say ‘Yes’. God says ‘Yes’ to prayers He receives that are in line with His Word and the request bolsters and supports Him and His precepts, and are within His Plans. In turn, our time to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is when a request for us to act or contribute either bolsters God and His will or goes against His will. If it is unclear, ask the Lord for His discernment, and lean on the Holy Spirit to help in providing the correct answer.

Remember, we who are His Followers made the Ultimate Oath to God, in front of God, when we accepted Jesus, that we would follow and obey Him, and make Jesus our Lord.  We need to avoid breaking that Oath by avoiding the sin of breaking our word, and keeping His Word.