Keep Your Word, But Don't Promise!

But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
James 5:12 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/jas.5.12.ESV

It's not often that people stop and think about this passage. This direction from The Lord.

Don't make promises. Don't swear by anything. Ever.

There are some whacky reasons for this. The biggest one is you never know what God is going to ask you to do tomorrow. He could ask you to do something that would break your earthly promise! So now you're stuck between breaking a promise or disobeying the God of the Universe... And let's be honest. It can be much easier to disobey God than break a promise to a friend, coworker, boss, spouse... I mean. If we're being real about it.

The consequences for breaking a promise are gut wrenching and in our face with a broken relationship. But when we disobey God we often don't see the impact immediately like we do with our fellow humans.

Now there are other reasons for sure. But after talking through the above. Do they really matter? Do you really want to be stuck between that situation above?

If yes, then have at it! Have fun with that...

If no, then yeah. Stop promising. Stop swearing by stuff.

Just say "yes" or "no" and follow through. Mean it.