New Life Foursquare Church

Have you ever heard someone ”take the Lord’s name in vain”? Many times we hear words that are not in our normal vocabulary. For me it is a bit of a tattle tale sign that I am not speaking with someone who loves my Lord and I have to fight the thought that I am better than that person for not talking that way. I discovered something that brought the ”Log” in my own eye a little more clear.

Many of us know of the commandment “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain”. I grew up thinking that I shouldn’t cuss. I thought that saying some alternative was fine. Then I read that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. I had to rethink of what I say to make sure that I wasn’t cursing something that God wouldn’t curse. That was cleaning up the outside to make the inside feel better.

Recently I went back to that commandment and discovered what Vain means. It means to ascribe attributes to someone that isn’t true. To miss-represent someone’s character. Oooo that one hurt when I thought about my internal monologue.

Let’s take a moment to discover this together. Let’s imagine that we have just come home from a busy day and there are still a few more things to do before you can rest. You pull the car in the garage, open the back hatch and take some things out. Then you get an unexpected phone call that requires you to get on your computer for a short time to resolve that issue. You see an item that needs to go into the garage and you open the door and put the item on a close shelf. You don’t even have to step into the garage to do this. Then you glance up and see that the garage door is still open and you hit the button to close the door. The next minute is filled with panic, regret and remorse as the garage door descends on the open hatch shattering the window and simultaneously wreaking the first bar of the garage door before it reverses and gets stuck in the up position.

What would you say to yourself? Pay attention to the “I am” statements you are saying to yourself. Is what you say to yourself as ugly as mine?

Let’s step out of the garage for a minute. When Moses asked God what his name was, God responded with “I AM”. Did you know that there isn’t a language you can speak about yourself without first acknowledging god? “I am tired, I am hungry, I am …”.

Let’s go back to the garage and look at those ”I am” statements again. Are they in line with what God says about you? If they are not, we are calling God a liar. God cannot lie so we are miss-representing his character. We are taking the Lords name in vain! I am no better than those that cuss.

So what are we to do? First think about what you would say to a friend if this happened to them, and then look for scripture that tells you what God says about you. Scripture is the sword of truth that will cut at the root of the behaviors. Apart from God you can do nothing. The good news is, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. Capture every thought and repent. That means change your thinking by repeating scripture to yourself. We are over comers, with God, we got this.