God Motivation is the state wherein the Christian is fueled solely by God and toward God to the glory of God.
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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Pants on Fire

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil."
(Matthew 5:33-37)

"But you PROMISED!"  Such are the words of those who have had their hopes dashed by oath-breakers.  Sometimes they are spoken sadly, sometimes through clinched teeth of wrath, or occasionally with a chuckle after being taken hook, line, and sinker once again by the family practical joker.

We put a good deal of stock in promises that people make precisely because we live in a world of liars.  If you can get a guarantee or someone can get one from you, the promised feels he has the right to hold the vow-maker to her word.  It's a sad deal really, but what are you going to do?  Jesus' answer is quite simply, "be different; just be honest, plain and simple."  He looked at the people of His day (just as He would look at us now) and heard their absurd extra wording tacked onto half their statements of intent and reminded them of how silly they sounded.  Was heaven or earth or Jerusalem or one's own head going to hold the speaker to his word because he had mentioned their substances?  Or just how big do we think we are that we would presume any of those items might shift or change because we do or don't stick to what we say?  Just try swearing your way into spontaneous hair color alteration--not gonna happen.

This is one of those examples where we humans have failed to recognize what's sometimes called the "spirit of the text."  In other words, yeah, the people looked back at the ancient writings of Scripture and saw that God told people to be honest and to look at those specific times where they had made some kind of declaration outside of casual conversation that warranted a consideration of the weight such words carried.  But clearly what He was NOT saying was that a certain portion of our daily vocal expiration was fair game for later denying at our convenience.  Quite the contrary.  The emphasis throughout the Scriptures, regardless of situational context is: Say what you mean and mean what you say.  If you don't do that, the indictment is, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Jesus says that living for Him means that part of the rock we're to build our lives on is the slab of straight-up honesty.  People should look at us and see the opposite of shadiness.  Christians ought to be the most trustworthy people on the planet, come wind or high water.  How are we doing?  I swear on the grave of my great grandaunt that I'll do better...wait...no I don't.

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