{"id":1235,"date":"2012-04-25T11:58:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T15:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2012-04-25T11:58:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T15:58:34","slug":"dont-misuse-gods-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/dont-misuse-gods-name.html","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Misuse God&#8217;s Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The third commandment is, &#8220;You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.&#8221;\u00a0 This really doesn&#8217;t need a lot of explanation.\u00a0 For some people the names Jesus Christ and\u00a0 God are only heard as curse words.\u00a0 They are added to some derogatory words to spew out obscenities when we get hurt or frustrated.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t take a rocket scientist to know that our God and Father is not pleased with that.<\/p>\n<p>This is the obvious misuse of God&#8217;s name, but there are more subtle ways to use it in a way that is not uplifting. When we shout, &#8220;Oh my God, over dropping a stack of books, what purpose does it serve?\u00a0 Surely we don&#8217;t expect God to help us pick up the books, and certainly it isn&#8217;t His fault we dropped them.<\/p>\n<p>Molly tries to sneak out of the house in a super short mini skirt and we say, &#8220;What in God&#8217;s name do think you&#8217;re doing?&#8221;\u00a0Not a good use of His name.\u00a0Even saying, &#8220;God bless America&#8221;, can be inappropriate if used in certain settings or with certain voice tones.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not trying to be picky, but if we really want to understand how the Ten Commandments apply in today&#8217;s society, please give me a little poetic license here.<\/p>\n<p>Some people like to &#8216;sugar coat&#8217; their bad words so as to make them more acceptable.\u00a0 Saying things like, &#8220;gosh darn it!&#8217; or &#8220;oh my gosh!&#8217;.\u00a0 &#8220;For gosh sakes,&#8221; is another one.\u00a0 You must be a little more creative to sugar the use of Jesus Christ&#8230;..Judas priest and Jiminy Cricket are ones we here around here.\u00a0 We need to be mindful of what we are saying and how it sounds to others.<\/p>\n<p>I think you get the idea.\u00a0 The names of God, Jehovah, Jesus and Christ are names to be used during prayer and worship, teaching and preaching, witnessing and encourageing others.\u00a0 They should lift people up, not bring them down.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a children song we sing in Sunday School, it goes like this:<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 Sometimes our big mouths need to be careful too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The third commandment is, &#8220;You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.&#8221;\u00a0 This really doesn&#8217;t need a lot of explanation.\u00a0 For some people the names Jesus Christ and\u00a0 God are only heard as curse words.\u00a0 They are added to some derogatory words to spew out obscenities when we get hurt or frustrated.\u00a0&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,14],"tags":[96,42],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-inspiration","tag-bible","tag-choices"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Don&#039;t Misuse God&#039;s Name - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/dont-misuse-gods-name.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don&#039;t Misuse God&#039;s Name - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The third commandment is, &#8220;You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.&#8221;\u00a0 This really doesn&#8217;t need a lot of explanation.\u00a0 For some people the names Jesus Christ and\u00a0 God are only heard as curse words.\u00a0 They are added to some derogatory words to spew out obscenities when we get hurt or frustrated.\u00a0&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/dont-misuse-gods-name.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-25T15:58:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Don't Misuse God's Name - 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