OATHS AND VOWS

I Was Just Thinking About – OATHS AND VOWS.

Our family was very proud when a teenage child who had been adopted in Ukraine by our son’s family became a citizen of the United States of America. To facilitate this act required the following Oath to be taken:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; 

that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; 

that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; 

that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; 

that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; 

that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and 

that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. 

In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.”

I thought about Oaths avowed for Church Membership and the seriousness with which they are taken. In my denominational affiliation, the minimum requirement and expectation for Church Membership is:

Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy? 

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel? 

Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ? 

Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?  

Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?

The minimum requirement for being numbered among those who are Biblical followers of the Lord Jesus Christ is summarized in the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5-7. To become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ requires adherence to Luke 14:25-35. How seriously do we accept and embrace the words of Jesus: (v. 26) “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. (v.27) And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. (v.33) Any one of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple.” Jesus concludes these statements about the cost of discipleship with these words: (v.35) He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Are you seriously adhering to the oaths you avowed to the Lord?

Prayerfully – consider these things with me.

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