Taking the Lord’s name in vain
Sunday, September 1, 2024 by Brave Knight Writers
Taking the Lord’s name in vain
You may ask, has the Holy Spirit touched me? Am I truly a Christian? To answer yourself, ask another question—am I a giver, or a taker? Right away a red flag goes up, the church wants my money. The truth is, God wants your time. And what is more valuable than your time?
If you have concerns about how your financial tithings are being used, you are probably in the wrong church. If you want to be sure how things are being managed, get involved and contribute your time and skills. Remember this, but don’t make it your reason: as you shovel out to others, you’ll find God has a bigger shovel and will replenish you.
Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Don’t be the person calling oneself a Christian while engaged in doing selfish things. According to dictionary.com one definition of vain reads: ‘without real significance, value, or importance; baseless or worthless’. We’ve all experienced such people or read about them. Some rise to be leaders of mega churches; others use it in business—or worst of all, to physically and emotionally abuse others.
When using the Lord’s name to disarm or trick people, the Lord’s name depletes in value, importance; and becomes worthless to many. The individual exhibiting such practices turns others against Jesus and hinders the efforts of true Christians from bringing people to Christ.
So, don’t think taking the Lord’s name in vain refers only to swearing or cursing. Although doing such is a grave sin, it pales to the damage don’t by wearing a Christian label, in name only. When we claim to be Christians just to make money or get on other people’s good side, we take the Lord’s name in vain. If you do these things, you serve the anti-Christ.
Ephesians 4:18 “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”
When you use the name Christ in your prayers, take His name as an identifier, but then deliberately ignore the Word—His name, you take in vain. (Philippians 2:9-10). Every knee shall bow for the name above all names, Jesus Christ.
Understand all the significance of being a Christian. Your actions and words must portray the commands, for you have entered a loving submission. Do not misrepresent Christ, either intentionally or in ignorance of the faith Scripture proclaims. If you say you love Jesus, but truly don’t, we take His name in vain and put ourselves among those to whom Christ will say, “I never knew you. Away from me” on judgement day. (Matthew 7:21-23).
Galatians 6:7-8 tells us, “Do not be fooled: You cannot cheat God. People harvest only what they plant. If they plant to satisfy their sinful selves, their sinful selves will bring them ruin. But if they plant to please the Spirit, they will receive eternal life from the Spirit.”
So, you have a dream. Some may support you, while others see you as a target. Here we’ll share a personal example of two aspects of spiritual warfare: taking the Lord’s name in vain versus the power of prayer. Building our homestead (The Instead) was our dream, but it turned into somewhat of a nightmare before a nail was driven. The local building inspector turned down the drawings I had done. An architect’s stamp was required before the plans could move forward. We didn’t know an architect, but as I searched, I had two things in mind. One, I wanted an honest person, and two; I thought if we worked with a female, it might make my wife more comfortable. The search efforts fell on me and soon I had found the answer—a female architect who professed to be a Christian. Our first meeting went well. The architect worked from her home and as we came up the walk, Christian symbols and Bible quotes greeted us.
Matthew 12:36-37 says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Well, the architect took my drawing and had us sign a very simple contract. Simple. But with a hook. Any delays in the progression of the designs would incur penalties. We assumed no delays would occur since I had completed drawings.
Meeting after meeting ensued, each identical to the one before, no progress made. Caught in a loop, we lived ground hog day at every meeting. The architect informed us the penalties were mounting, so I contacted my attorney, who told us were hooked. He sent her a letter ending her contract and asked for a bill to settle the issue. We owed ten-thousand dollars with nothing to show for it. She claimed the prints were her intellectual property and refused to give them back. Our dream crashed and burned. We were emotionally bankrupt and financially hurt. Weeks passed before we reconciled ourselves to the idea of forging ahead with a new architect.
“Pray.” My wife was standing over one of those old-fashioned yellow paged telephone directories, and pray we did. Our only expectation was to start fresh with an honest architect. There is no way to explain what happened as my finger dropped through the list of names, but I stopped on one. We set up an appointment where we confessed our story of deception and named the culprit. His eyes lit up. He knew her. As a matter of fact, she had worked for him. He said she had ripped off clients and almost bankrupted him. He said he would love to intervene on our behalf, as he knew where the buried skeletons lay.
It took a couple of weeks before he called us to another meeting to give us our prints. He even made some corrections and stamped them; he said it was quite a privilege to do business on our behalf. You never know when you’ll meet an angel. We’ve lived in the home we built from those prints for 16-years now.
2 Timothy 2:16 ESV says, “But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.”
What the first architect did will be between her and God. From what we read in scripture; it will not bode well for her. We weren’t alone in her deceptions. As we later found out, she had ripped off our insurance agent in much the same way. She played the Christian until her prey took the bait and was well within her trap, then she collected the blessings of the anti-Christ.
Christians give. They don’t take. And God replenishes.
