THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 5:33-37
“All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)
Have you ever known someone who is a constant promise-breaker?
They promise the world, but usually do not deliver?
Such people eventually need to use ‘oaths’ to get people to believe them.
But, Jesus warns, by this point the ‘evil one’ has got a hold of you.
He is not speaking against an oath in court, nor the oath of office.
It seems that people in Jesus’ day were using God’s Name to make their word stronger.
Instead of ‘I promise’, it was like ‘I promise in God’s Name’.
And often they did not mean it, but were using God to get other’s trust.
Jesus is stressing the importance of giving and keeping our word.
When you say YES to something, mean it when you say it… same with NO.
Don’t try to make your promise stronger with extreme oaths or declarations.
In fact, if you have to add these, it means that your word is not reliable.
The way to build or regain trust is not to add oaths to your promises.
The way to build or regain trust is to mean what you say, and say what you mean.
How many times do we throw out, ‘I’ll pray for you’, or ‘so good to see you’…
Or do we add the words, ‘I really mean it’, as if others times you don’t.
If you have to add weight to your word, then your word is already compromised.
Think about the commitments you make today… do you really mean them?
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, I have made promises to You and to others that I have not followed through on. Help me to reclaim integrity and trust by diligently aiming to keep my word.
A rather interesting point, and you really made me think on it. How many things have I promised and broke that promise, to someone or the almighty himself? It brings me back to when I was baptized and kind of questions the legitimacy of the vows that I made. I say that I Love God and I am going to try my hardest to give my life to him in everything I do; am I really staying true to that word though? Or am I going back on it every single time I mess up? I try not to make promises to people, simply because I know that promises of any kind can be hard to kept and I never know what could cause me to go back on my word. I don’t like to admit that, but it’s true not because I have gone back on promises before that I can really remember and are staying with me, but simply because I am human. My flesh fails me every single day and because of that I am breaking the promises and things I have said to the Lord in hopes that it would change me and make me into a better child of God. Even when we do break promises to the Father though, does he forgive us? When we go back on our word, people tend to hold it over our head and rub our noses in it to teach us a lesson. Does God do that though? I don’t feel that he would, for he is full of grace and forgiveness; I think from everyday though, he uses broken promises and mistakes to remind us of how we can improve by gently urging us not to make the same mistakes again, rather than keeping those failures and holding them over our heads to make us feel bad by reminding us daily how we did indeed fail. That is the difference between the Holy Father and the deciever. This is what I believe anyway.