Honouring God's name

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. – Exodus 20.7

When we read this verse the first thing we tend to think of is just using God’s name as part of a curse or a slogan it just say it flippantly. One that we hear all the time is ‘Oh my g___!’

I really hate to hear that and it offends me every time I hear it. We all hear that every day and unless we are careful the speech patterns of those around us become our own. I am not really even happy that I sometimes use the phrase ‘oh my goodness.’

People do the same thing with the name of Jesus and Christians can find our not quite as offensive phrases for those as well.

I think those things are wrong. I think it cheapens the name of our holy God when we use His precious name in our everyday common speech. We ought to be careful about those things.

But taking God’s name in vain can be even worse than that.

The real dangerous part of taking God’s name is when we put God’s name on our own efforts when it is just our own doings. Taking God’s name is using God for our advantage or to make political points. I think we take God’s name in vain when we try to determine God’s judgement in natural disasters. Who are we to determine when God is acting apart from His word? How can I say ‘God sent this disaster because the people here are sinning?’ We can’t use God’s name as a weapon in our discussions.

I am going to make some folks angry here – but can we say ‘In God we trust’ about a secular pagan state who obviously does not trust God? Isn’t that taking God’s name in vain?  Certain politicians know that if they don’t use God they won’t have a chance of being elected.

I could go on. God’s name is holy and needs to be protected. We can’t use it common or coarse conversation and we can’t use to score points in a debate or in social media memes.