Let your Yes be Yes and Your No, No

James 5:12 (NKJV)

12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.

But let your yea be yea, and your nay nay; lest you fall into condemnation; that is, "let it suffice you to affirm or deny a thing as there is occasion, and be sure to stand to your word, an be true to it, so as to give no occasion for your being suspected of falsehood; and then you will be kept from the condemnation of backing what you say or promise by rash oaths, and from profaning the name of God to justify yourselves. It is being suspected of falsehood that leads men to swearing. Let it be known that your keep to truth, and are firm to your word, and by this means you will find there is no need to swear to what you say. Thus shall you escape the condemnation which is expressly annexed to the third commandment: The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. [Matthew Henry Commentary]

In his book When Life Is Hard, pastor and author James MacDonald shares a valuable lesson he learned during his days as a basketball player. He writes:

I played a lot of basketball back in the day. I sprained my ankles many times, and I learned too late that the best way to handle all that black-and-blue is to fill a wastebasket with ice and top it off with water. Then, while the injury is fresh, put your wounded foot deep into that cold water and leave it there.

If you can last for one minute, it's just crazy painful. But if you can keep it in there for two minutes, the injury and its recovery time will be cut in half. … If you can hang on for two and a half minutes, you can be playing basketball again by Thursday, but the pain of holding your foot in that arctic water will have you crying out for someone to bring you a sharp object. Even with my worst injuries I seldom made it two and a half minutes.

But here is the amazing thing about "remaining under the pain" of having your foot in that cold bucket: If you can hang in there for three minutes, you'll be walking on it tomorrow. The pain will be consuming those last thirty seconds, worse by far than the injury itself now. But you will walk tomorrow.

MacDonald concludes: "It is just that way with trials. You can come to the place where the circumstance itself is less painful than the commitment not to give up."  [Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky; source: James MacDonald, When Life Is Hard (Moody, 2010), p. 63]

It can be painful to give a truthful answer, especially when you have done something wrong. I use to watch the TV show COPs. So many times a person would get caught where it was clearly seen what they had done for the camera doesn’t hide many facts. Yet when the person was asked if they had committed the crime their answer would be “No.” It wasn’t until they realized they had been watched, the person next to them was an undercover officer, or they were just tired of lying would they finally admit the truth.

Also there are times in our life when we don’t want to commit so we say things like “I think”, “I guess”, “I’m not sure, but … .” You probably know those type of answers. If you need to say yes or no, follow God’s word and answer honestly and truthfully without swearing.