Friday Reading: James 5:12-16
Key Verse: James 5:12
12 But before all things, my brothers, do not swear; neither by the heaven nor by the earth, nor any other oath. But let your yes be yes, and your no, no, lest you fall into condemnation.
Devotion:
Do you find it hard to say no? Are you one of those people who just cannot seem to say no to anyone? Well, I count you as one of the lucky ones because I believe that you already have a head start in the love you have for others. But you may well find that you have a problem when you have said yes only to find out that you cannot possible handle what you have said yes to! Making sure that you are able to tell the truth is about thinking ahead and ensuring that you say no when you cannot uphold a ‘yes’ and then saying yes to some of those cases that you know you can but just don’t want to!
God does not want us to have to swear on our parents lives or swear on anything to make sure that people believe us. He wants us to be able to tell the truth up front and then people can know that when we do say something we actually mean what we have said! Now for some of us that have a memory like a sieve, thinking ahead is a problem unless we have reminders; write things down and even have things to remind us along the way... but that does not get round the fact that we still have to mean what we say!
God has never let us down and He never will! How can we know this – because He has not done so in any stage in history; that is quite unlike anything or anyone else and hence we can know that what God says, He does! This means that our prayers will be heard and will be answered because that is what God has promised, and what God has promised, we have seen that He will deliver time and time again! We may be able to get people to say yes when they mean no by tricking them into doing something – but that trick will never work with God because He is Just! No matter how much we plead with Him to give us something that is not right, we can expect never to receive it! God knows how to say yes and how to say no, and what He says... goes!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like saying yes or no?
Do you know how many times God has said yes?
Key Verse: James 5:12
12 But before all things, my brothers, do not swear; neither by the heaven nor by the earth, nor any other oath. But let your yes be yes, and your no, no, lest you fall into condemnation.
Devotion:
Do you find it hard to say no? Are you one of those people who just cannot seem to say no to anyone? Well, I count you as one of the lucky ones because I believe that you already have a head start in the love you have for others. But you may well find that you have a problem when you have said yes only to find out that you cannot possible handle what you have said yes to! Making sure that you are able to tell the truth is about thinking ahead and ensuring that you say no when you cannot uphold a ‘yes’ and then saying yes to some of those cases that you know you can but just don’t want to!
God does not want us to have to swear on our parents lives or swear on anything to make sure that people believe us. He wants us to be able to tell the truth up front and then people can know that when we do say something we actually mean what we have said! Now for some of us that have a memory like a sieve, thinking ahead is a problem unless we have reminders; write things down and even have things to remind us along the way... but that does not get round the fact that we still have to mean what we say!
God has never let us down and He never will! How can we know this – because He has not done so in any stage in history; that is quite unlike anything or anyone else and hence we can know that what God says, He does! This means that our prayers will be heard and will be answered because that is what God has promised, and what God has promised, we have seen that He will deliver time and time again! We may be able to get people to say yes when they mean no by tricking them into doing something – but that trick will never work with God because He is Just! No matter how much we plead with Him to give us something that is not right, we can expect never to receive it! God knows how to say yes and how to say no, and what He says... goes!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like saying yes or no?
Do you know how many times God has said yes?