The third commandment is, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”  This really doesn’t need a lot of explanation.  For some people the names Jesus Christ and  God are only heard as curse words.  They are added to some derogatory words to spew out obscenities when we get hurt or frustrated.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that our God and Father is not pleased with that.

This is the obvious misuse of God’s name, but there are more subtle ways to use it in a way that is not uplifting. When we shout, “Oh my God, over dropping a stack of books, what purpose does it serve?  Surely we don’t expect God to help us pick up the books, and certainly it isn’t His fault we dropped them.

Molly tries to sneak out of the house in a super short mini skirt and we say, “What in God’s name do think you’re doing?” Not a good use of His name. Even saying, “God bless America”, can be inappropriate if used in certain settings or with certain voice tones.  I’m not trying to be picky, but if we really want to understand how the Ten Commandments apply in today’s society, please give me a little poetic license here.

Some people like to ‘sugar coat’ their bad words so as to make them more acceptable.  Saying things like, “gosh darn it!’ or “oh my gosh!’.  “For gosh sakes,” is another one.  You must be a little more creative to sugar the use of Jesus Christ…..Judas priest and Jiminy Cricket are ones we here around here.  We need to be mindful of what we are saying and how it sounds to others.

I think you get the idea.  The names of God, Jehovah, Jesus and Christ are names to be used during prayer and worship, teaching and preaching, witnessing and encourageing others.  They should lift people up, not bring them down.  There’s a children song we sing in Sunday School, it goes like this:

Be careful little mouth, what you say, Be careful little mouth what you say, For the Father up above is looking down in love. So, be careful little mouth what you say.  Sometimes our big mouths need to be careful too.