The third commandment that God spoke to Moses was and I quote
7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
So what does this passage from Exodus 20 have to do with anything? Well, I was watching Miss America 2010 this weekend(I know, I know but I love stuff like this). The winner was Caressa Cameron from Virginia. She seemed to be totally taken by surprise and as she was doing her "Here she is, Miss America" walk across the stage she was clearly mouthing "thank you, Jesus" and pointing to the sky. Then, she said "Oh my God". She did this several times and as she was saying each thing, I kept thinking, how often do we misuse the name of God?
Hebrew scribes used to have to ritually cleanse themselves before and after writing the name YHWH(our modern word is Yahweh) which is the highest name of God. They would also use a new quill each time they wrote His name. They took the name of God very seriously. I am not sure we do! With the terms "OMG" and "Good Lord" or "Good God" or worse, we take lightly the Holy and majestic name of God. We are all of a sudden a casual society that takes so many things as being not important. But, God is the same God who told Moses to take off his sandals because Moses was standing on holy ground. Each encounter with God in the Bible required the human to bow down and treat God reverently.
In our home we don't let our kids say "oh my gosh" even. They don't know that gosh and God are that different. We want them hold God's name in the highest reverence possible. I want to hold God's name in the highest possible regard. So, please don't invoke the name of Jesus and say thank you and then in your next breath, use His name in vain. Keep the name of God sacred and pure and for Pete's sake, never demand God damn something, because He just might!
