Your Yes and Your No
“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”
We have got to be men and women of our word, we have to be honourable because the world is looking at how we conduct ourselves.
You know, in the old days, a man would come onto a farm and make a bid to buy a farm. The farmer would make an agreement and they would do a handshake, a gentleman’s agreement, and that would stand.
Nothing would change that.
They could go to the lawyer and draw up papers - papers mean nothing. Papers mean nothing - just the honour and the word of a man.
Let your “yes” be “yes”, and let your “no” be “no”. Once the farmer had made that handshake, the agreement had been done - It was finished.
Another man could come the next day and offer double the price for the farm but the honourable man would say: “Sorry, I sold the farm yesterday.”
We don’t see too much of that these days, do we?
But that is why you and I must never be in a hurry to make a decision because once it's made it is done. That goes for marriage and that goes for things like business partnerships. Your “yes” must be “yes” and your “no” must be “no”. As Christians, our word is our honour. People must trust us at all costs, we must be known as trustworthy people.
I don’t know if you remember that famous movie and book, The Cross and the Switchblade, where David Wilkerson worked with drug addicts and gangsters in the poorest parts of New York City and Nicky Cruz was the leader of a gang.
They were having a meeting one night in a theatre, and after the altar call, they were passing the plate around for the collection, and David Wilkerson tested Nicky Cruz. He said, “I want you to take the collection tonight.” And some of the guys looked at David Wilkerson as if to say, “Are you mad? He is going to run away with the money!” - because he went down the one side of the aisle and then, he had to go up onto the platform, behind the curtain, and go down the other side to collect the rest of the money. There was a door at the back of the theatre, so he could have gaped it anytime he wanted - But he didn’t!
He went up onto the stage, around, passed the curtain and down to the other side, and of course, that was one of the most important decisions that he made.
When you make a commitment make sure you keep it. The most important commitment of all is when you make a commitment to Jesus Christ, to promise to serve Him, to obey Him, to make Him Lord of your life and then, of course, you understand that God will always keep His side of the commitment.
Have a wonderful day.
God bless you and goodbye.