During a conversation with a former schoolmate, he told me, ″The old man upstairs will have to answer a lot for the mess the world is in.″ I was distressed by my friend's attitude towards God, but he was not a believer. I thought, ″How much more scandalous it is when Christians behave in ways that dishonour God.″

A literal translation of the third commandment would read, ″You shall not lift up the name of the Lord your God to emptiness or worthlessness″. In the Bible, the name of God represents who God is-His nature. The goal of creation is to reflect God's glory (Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14) and the mission of God's people is to bring Him glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). That is why we regularly pray: ″Hallowed be your name″ (Matthew 6:9).

However, God's people can act in ways that make His name look empty or worthless, and dishonour Him. We do so by haphazard, boring, irreverent, or unholy worship. The word ″worship″ comes from ″worth-ship″ and carries the idea of expressing the worthiness of God. But our worship often fails to do that!

We dishonour God by using His name irreverently in vows and in testimonies that are not truthful, or by the trivial use of God's name in ordinary conversation. I cringe when I read Christians writing ″OMG″, which originally meant ″oh my God″. The Israelites took the idea of profaning God's name very seriously. In fact, they did not even want to pronounce the covenant name of God (Yahweh). Instead, they substituted it with ″Lord″ when they encountered it in Scripture.

Christians can also dishonour God's name by ungodly behaviour, by claiming that God told them something that He did not say, and by false prophecy. Conflicts within the church and national wars fought in God's name also bring much dishonour to His name.

Scripture is clear that ″the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name″ (Deuteronomy 5:11). This is a curious use of the double negative (not . . . guiltless). It would have been much smoother to say, ″ . . . will hold him guilty″. Perhaps, the reason is because people can invoke God's name very piously and look innocent and godly even while they are taking the name of God in vain. But they can't fool God. Because we stand liable to judgment for dishonouring God's name, we should be careful of the way we behave.