15 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
Swearing an Oath. Some years ago, my wife and I attended a wedding. during the reception, the father of the bride turned to us and said, “It doesn’t matter. We all know the words [vows] don’t mean anything anymore.”
My wife and I were both dumbfounded and yet not surprised. We live in a twenty-first century culture where oaths, vows, and commitments are taken quite casually. Beyond this, a lie is only a lie if you are caught lying; otherwise, you merely “misspoke.” Hum!
Even before I became a Christian, when I was more of a politically radical, Moral Therapeutic Deist, I understood that vows and oaths meant more than casual convenient commitments. To be sure, sometimes those commitments turned out to be terribly bad decisions. Thus, the inauguration of the legal profession.
But if anyone seeks to stand in the presence of God he swears to his own hurt and does not change.
We need to seek the counsel of the wise in our lives to lower the risk level of our far-too-often impetuous commitments. You’ve made them, I’ve made them; and we all live with the consequences, sometimes for the rest of our lives.
So what is this call to commitment really all about? Simply put, it is about sacrifice. When we devote ourselves to a particular path it usually requires surrendering certain other obligations and allegiances. If we dedicate ourselves to God, it will require moving away from some relationships and extraneous pursuits so that we can focus on this new commitment and what it entails.
Sacrifice and commitment go hand in hand.
Let your yes be Yes, and your no be No. [Matt. 5:37.] Undergird it with much prayer, fasting, counsel, and a serious sense of sacrifice. There are no cutesy pinky-swears.
Sounds simple enough. Right!
Honour God, honour people, make a difference,
Gary
Dr. Gary Davis, President
NEXT— Making the Cut: never shaken, never moved.
Clueless Christianity 