| “Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation” (James 5:12). |
| Here we find another important quality for Christians, and especially young people, that is becoming more and more difficult to find today. Are we willing to give our word as to something, and then keep our word? A promise or a commitment needs to be honored, and if we learn to do this when we are young, we will be trusted and given more responsibility. But if we become known as someone who cannot be depended upon, we will not be entrusted with anything important. |
| When we make a commitment, in effect we make a promise to do something. Perhaps it is something that needs to be done on a regular basis, and requires a sacrifice from us. Are we willing to do that? Let me use an example. Perhaps some of you are getting old enough to teach Sunday school. In the Sunday school I was involved with most of my life, many of the children came from ungodly and often unhappy homes. It meant a lot to them to have the same teacher every week. They understood if their teacher was away once or twice a year, but if he or she was gone quite often, it disturbed them. To be at Sunday school regularly was a commitment for a teacher, for it was easy to want to go and visit friends or relatives on weekends, to go up to the cottage, or something like that. I was thankful for those who made that commitment and gave up their own pleasure. |
| We find this quality illustrated in Matthew 25:28, which reads, “Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.” Read the whole story for yourself, and you will see how two men used their talents wisely for the Lord, while one simply hid his talent in the earth. The master commanded that his talent be given to the man who already had ten talents. Why was this? It was because the master (who is a picture of the Lord) knew that the man with ten talents was dependable and would use the talent well. It is good to be known as someone who is dependable. |
