How to Take God Seriously

Names are important. We can all remember when someone who should have known our name forgot it, or when we were mistaken for someone else.

For many of us, the origin of our names may mean very little, but in the Bible, naming a child was a serious business. Some names were physically descriptive. Like Isaac’s twin sons – the first called ‘Esau’, which means ‘hairy’ (because he was), and the other ‘Jacob’, meaning ‘he grasps the heel’ (he was doing exactly that to his brother when he was born!). Or, names describing what God had done: when Hannah, who’d prayed for a child, had a son, she called him Samuel, meaning ‘God heard me’. And the best example is Jesus, the Greek form of ‘Joshua’, which means ‘the Lord saves’.

Biblical names signified something important about a person and communicated what they stood for; God’s name was, and is, no different.

This third commandment, ‘Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God’, is about the disturbing fact that we can – and do – misuse God’s name. And that involves far more than swearing or blasphemy. It concerns the very nature of who God is.

Today few, if any, authority figures or institutions generate automatic respect – it’s become something of a hallmark of Western civilisation.

Given this trend, I find myself unsurprised that a tone of mockery and scorn can now be found in comments made about God himself. But while a nation may survive being sarcastic and sceptical about its leading public figures, I am not so sure it can survive giving God the same treatment.

We worship God not just because he is powerful (after all, a dictator may have power), but because he is perfect and holy. What we find admirable in other people – their love, wisdom and thoughtfulness – we find in God to an unlimited extent.

To misuse God’s name is foolish because of his mighty power. It is also immoral because of his perfect character.

Decide today not to use the name of God in an irreverent, frivolous and disrespectful way. He deserves more.

Finally, we need to live lives that show that the words we say are true – we dishonour God’s name if we don’t. Not easy, but essential. It’s one reason why the church’s reputation has suffered – too many people have heard ‘religious’ people say one thing, and seen them do another.

After Jesus ascended to heaven, his followers were called ‘Christians’ by people who saw how central Jesus was to what they did and said. Now as Christians, we are called to live lives that are worthy of the name.

In Jesus, we can be on first-name terms with God. Jesus, in turn, tells us that God cares for us so much that he knows every detail of who we are. But this is just the start because the amazing thing is that when we begin to honour God’s name, he honours us back. The nearer we draw to him, the closer he comes to us. The more we call him by name, the more we hear him calling us by name. As we do this, we learn one of the most wonderful truths about God: you can never out-give him and you can never out-love him. To honour God’s name is to put in process a chain of events that, one glorious day, will result in us seeing God face to face.