Our word is our bond...

"But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil."--Matthew 5:37.  Here, Jesus is dealing with the simple concept of keeping your word.  Here we see that our word is our bond.

Our word is our bond.  Keeping our word.  I hate to be the first to admit that this is something I have failed at time and again but it is something I am getting better at.  This too is part of helping us surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees.  It is no secret that the Pharisees were quite literally hypocrites.  They would be preaching one thing but doing another.

Our word is our bond. Jesus tells us to let our yes be yes and our no be no.  He goes on to say that anything beyond this is of evil.  Evil as it is used here means that what is being spoken of is socially or morally worthless. I think everyone of us know someone or know of someone who really cannot be counted on in any way.  Much of the reason for this is because that person is not one known to keep their word and/or they have let us down more than once in the past.  What we can gather from this text is that if we don't keep our word, our word is worthless.

Our word is our bond.  Something else that plays into this is the issue of credibility. As Christians and especially for those of us that are preaching God's word on a full time basis, credibility is crucial.  Our credibility can be destroyed in any number of ways but our credibility ultimately comes down to our ability to keep our word.  To illustrate how crucial keeping our word is we can look to how many people's faith has been destroyed as a result of someone not keeping their word.  This can lead to something a little more drastic and that is the issue of trust.

Our word is our bond.  If we continually fail to keep our word, people's ability to trust us is utterly destroyed.  I know from personal experience, there is not much of an uglier feeling than knowing you are unable to trust someone.  No matter how you cut it, every single relationship in our lives, including our relationship with God is built on trust.  What makes our relationship with God unique is that with God, it is impossible for Him to lie as we read in Hebrews 6:18.  Therefore, we can ALWAYS trust God to keep His word when we choose to obey His commands as given through Christ and the apostles in the New Testament.

Our word is our bond.  Have you recently made a promise to someone?  Follow through with that promise, no matter how big or small. If there is something that needs to be made right, make it right.  Our whole relationship with someone, God or people rides on our ability to trust and to be trusted.  I know many times this is easier said than done.  If you have gone back on your word with someone, it is not too late to make it right but if for whatever reason it is too late, learn from it and don't let it happen again.  But more importantly, if you have found yourself going back on your word to God that you would follow Him, it is not too late for you to come back and never will be as long as we are on this side of judgment.  So do what you got to do.  Why?  Because our word is our bond.

PRAY ABOUT IT! DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!