March 13. Jesus is God's Amen. All the promises of God find their yes in Him.

That is why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory.

2 Corinthians 120.

Prayer is the place where the past and future are linked repeatedly in our lives.

I mentioned this here because Paul links prayer with God's yes in this verse in a striking way. In 2 Corinthians 120, he says with choppy Greek that comes through in choppy English,

that is why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory.

Let's try to smooth that out.

Here's what he's saying.

Therefore, because of Christ, we say amen to God in our prayers to show that God gets the glory for the future grace we are asking for and counting on when we pray.

If you've ever wondered why Christians say amen at the end of our prayers and where that custom comes from, here's the answer. Amen is a word taken straight

over into Greek from Hebrew without any translation, just like it has come into English and

most other languages without any translation. In Hebrew, it was a very strong affirmation.

See Numbers 522, the MI513, 86.

A formal, solemn, earnest, I agree,

or I affirm what was just said, or this is true. Most simply, amen means a very

earnest yes in the context of addressing God. Now, notice the connection between the two halves of 2 Corinthians 120. The first half says,

all the promises of God find their yes in Him. The second half says, this is why it is through

him that we utter our amen to God for His glory.

When we realize that Amen and Yes mean the same thing,

here's what the verse says.

In Christ Jesus, God says His yes to us through his promises, and in Christ we say our yes to God through

prayer. You know,

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