Yes & Amen

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." - 2 Corinthians 1:18

I was going to share this with our staff this morning, but circumstances changed our plans a bit.

Paul is addressing a change of plans himself in this passage. (To be honest the irony of this just dawned on me. You'll have to trust me that this was not thought out this way. I'm not that clever.) Anyway, there were some that were questioning Paul's integrity or at least his sincerity when he had shared his planned itinerary to be there at a certain time. He wanted to make sure that they understood the truth and that the message that was preached was true.

So many times in life we send conflicting messages. While there are times this is unavoidable, as in the case of Paul, most of the time it is simple carelessness or a looseness on our part that causes this. I'm not going to touch on the side where intentional deception comes in, we know that lying is clear cut sin. We can be very flippant with our promises and our words so easily. If we are not careful, we can even do this in spiritual matters. "I'll pray for you," yet, we never get around to it. "I was thinking of you recently," yeah, the moment we saw them or their name popped up on caller ID. "I felt God leading me..." the second we wanted to do something else or got uncomfortable with a situation. On and on it goes.

So quickly our lives and our message becomes "yes" and "no". Our message should be the same as Christ's. His was "Yes." Meaning, His message was sure and it was consistent, and it brought hope and life to all who heard and accepted. Paul continues in this passage and says that our message is to be "Amen". Most of us know that "amen" means "so be it." It is not actually a statement of completion or ending, it is a statement of agreement and alignment.

"Amen" became the ending to prayers out of a desire to express agreement with the prayer just prayed by another. It is an affirmation of what has just been proclaimed or petitioned. The word also means "believe" or "truly". Amen is not a conclusion it is a declaration of faith and faithfulness. When our words and our lives are "Yes" and "Amen" we are aligning ourselves with the Word of God, the message of peace and salvation, and with great faith in the sovereignty of an Almighty God. May our words and our actions consistently portray this to the best of our ability as we live intentionally for Him and for His glory.