LET YOUR YES BE YES AND YOUR NO BE NO

Make it stand out

Matthew 5:37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

Jesus shared this in the sermon on the Mount. He’d just spoken on divorce and then he speaks about making an oath or a vow and then says let your yes be yes and your no be no. James also repeats this verse in Chapter 5, so there’s a great importance in it. It comes from Numbers 30:2 If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Aside from marriage where a formal vow and promise is made or an oath in court, we are to simply say yes or no and that will validate that we mean what we say to someone. Our yes holds promise enough as we’re speaking from a sincere heart as believers in Christ who is the truth. We don’t need to say do you swear it’s true? Our yes or no is enough.

Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one another. It’s also a reminder that we don’t sit on the fence, we’re all in for Christ. Not to be half hearted or wishy washy about what we believe to simply please people. I spoke to a Catholic couple yesterday who I spoke some hard truths to because I care for their eternal salvation. Sometimes we say no that isn’t right or yes this is what I believe. At times I may not know an answer for something I am praying about but when I know I don’t want to tiptoe around an answer, I want to be truthful with a yes or no. I pray we see many people come to Christ and say a genuine “yes” to following Jesus. There is a cost to consider when we follow Jesus, when we say yes there’s no turning back. In a day and age where so many people are indecisive, I hope to see many people who know the truth and will definitely follow Him.