To Take in Vain...

Exodus 20:7

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, 

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Most of us were probably taught the ten commandments in Sunday School when we were younger.  Well...we were taught to recite the words of the commandments anyway.  This is the third commandment given to Moses, the first two being that we are not to have any other God before Him.

Have you ever stopped to think just what this verse is saying?  If you were like me, growing up in a mainstream denomination, you were most likely taught that this verse simply meant that you were not to swear...yes, that's right...I was taught that taking His name in vain was saying His name as a swear word.  As a young, trusting child, I accepted this to be the extent of the meaning; and like most Americans, as I grew older, I did not see the need to re-examine what tradition had taught.

Let me take you on a quick journey to the heart of the Father regarding this verse...

Take = nasa = to lift, bear up, carry, be exalted

Name = shem = reputation, glory

Vain = shav = emptiness, falsehood, lying, worthlessness (of conduct)

                     this word is from the root word show, which means ruin, waste, devastation

Guiltless = naqah = not to be free from obligation, not to be exempt from punishment

To reword the verse using the meanings from above:

You shall not lift or bear up the reputation of the Lord your God in worthlessness of conduct or falsely, for the Lord will not hold him free from obligation who carries His reputation with emptiness.

This gave it a whole new meaning to me!  Taking His name in vain is NOT about using His name as a swear word, as I was taught.  Rather it is proclaiming to be one of His without any conduct to back that up.  That is what I see running rampant in the American churches today.

There are masses of people that believe that they are "saved" because they raised their hand in church one Sunday and repeated a prayer while everyone else closed their eyes and bowed their heads!  That is NOT taking His Name in a worthy manner....this is not lifting up His Glory in a way that exalts His Majesty.

God is telling us that we need to count the cost before proclaiming our allegiance to Him.  We are expected to conduct ourselves worthy of His Name, His reputation, His Glory!  There is to be fruit of our conversion as well as fruit of our continued commitment to this Holy God.

The fruit is to be how we behave...how we conduct our selves....how we choose His Ways over our own.  As we grow in the Faith, our choices are to reflect more and more of Him and less of self.

Are you growing in Faith?  Are you conducting yourself in a manner that says "I belong to God"? Or are you satisfied with your decision one Sunday to raise your hand and repeat a prayer?

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The Lord made it clear when He gave the words to Moses.....He is the only true God and we are to serve Him (not with mere words) in a manner worthy of His Name and reputation.....not our own.

May you be willing to allow Him to challenge the traditions that you have been taught and replace those with His glorious Truth....

Flowing together with Jehovah....

Psalm 34:5

This is a relatively short verse but it is packed with incredible meaning!

Come with me as I take you on the journey of pulling this verse apart to see what "knowledge nuggets" we can find...are you ready?  Okay....let's get started!

"They looked unto Him and were lightened and their faces were not ashamed." 

 Yup, that is all there is to this verse...not very long at all but once you begin to take a deeper look at it, your eyes of understanding begin to see the treasure hidden in the English wording.

First, let's see what the Hebrew words were and what they mean...
   
nabat = looked....meaning is regard, pay attention, consider
nahar = lightened....meaning is to shine, beam, be radiant, to flow, stream, flow together
chapher = ashamed....meaning is to be ashamed, be confounded, feel abashed, cause embarrassment
paniym = faces...meaning is face, faces, presence

What is interesting is that the word "nahar" is used only 6 times in the entire Old Testament!  The word is translated to mean "flow together" five out of the six times it is used; it is translated to be "lightened" in this verse.  But what if we translated this word to be the same in every verse it was used?  What or how would that change the tone of this verse in Psalm 34?   SO glad you asked!

Let's put this verse back together using what we found hidden in the Hebrew meanings...

"They that paid attention and considered Him flowed together with Him and their faces were radiant and not ashamed."

This translation has a bit more depth to it than the translation in the modern versions of the Bible!

Jesus said to the Samaritan women by the well in John 4 "...but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  Also in John 7:38 "Whoever believes in Me, as scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

Jeremiah 2:13 says "...for My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters..."  God refers to Himself as the fountain of living waters!  How incredible that the verse in Psalms tells us that those who pay attention to Him will "flow together" with Him...

The image of flowing down the river of life with the Father is one that gives me hope....He is the fountain of living water and from that He offers it to me...He offers to become the source of the spring that flows from within me.  It is up to me to choose which fountain I will allow to feed my spring....choose this day whom you shall serve...blessings or cursing...life or death.....the choice is left up to me.   Do I choose to take from the cup offered by Jesus and so have my life-spring connected to the Living Fountain?  Or do I choose to deny His cup?

The same choice is presented to you today......

If you are troubled and have felt like you have tried everything but things are still out of control....stop and ask yourself this - Have I truly been paying attention to God?  Have I considered His Way of doing things over my way?

Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us that life will be easy once we give our lives to God.  However, He does promise us Peace in the midst of storms and a place of quietness among the chaos....when we surrender to His will and pay attention to His ways and consider Him.  

When we do that, our journey down the river of life will not seem so much like rapids but have a wonderful calm to the rocking of the boat ;)

May you take the time to pay closer attention to the One who Created all that you see and everything you cannot see.....may your journey take you closer to His Heart than away from it....and may you choose to drink from His cup and experience the Living Waters of life....