March 16: Matthew 5 33-37

Key Verse: Matthew 5 37
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Devotion:
How many times a week do you ‘swear an oath’ thinking that this will carry more weight than simply saying what you will do? I used to do this a lot until it was pointed out that we don’t have control over everything around us, so we should simply be saying what we know we can do – and if people are asking for more, then we say we will try to do that…

God made many promises to us, but He did not swear an oath. He always tells us the truth and when He says He will do something, we know it is true and we can depend on what He has said. Why is this not the same for all mankind? Because we are corrupt at the core! We have also learned not to trust people because what they have told us and what they do seem to be two different things! What we should be aiming at is bringing trust back into our relationships so we can depend on people once again.

As the world struggles to contain this current outbreak of coronavirus, people seem to have lost the will to trust in anything in many places and would rather build up their own ‘defence’ against anything by buying even more than they need to survive on. They are ignoring the needs of their neighbours and trying to go it alone – where has the trust gone in our societies?

We need to put aside our wants and desires and start thinking about the promises we made to God… “But I didn’t make any promises to God” may be your response, but I look at it differently. God simply says what is going to happen and we take that as a promise. He expects us to say what we are going to do and expects us to fulfil those words – taking it as a promise just as we take His word as a promise. That is the way we should all be living – simply saying what we can do and getting out and doing it! As an individual I promised to help people on the estate where I now live and I am trying to fulfil that as best I can – even within Governmental guidelines in the current crisis we face. We can still do this!

Points to Ponder:
Do you use excuses so you don’t have to do your work?

What excuses have you used with God?