Gleaner's Lesson - Hallowed Be Thy Name

We have been studying in Gleaners about The Lord's Prayer and how it is backed up by the 10 Commandments.
http://apttoteach.blogspot.com/2011/05/lords-prayer-ten-commandments.html

Last Wednesday's Lesson covered:

"Hallowed be thy name"

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

Hallowed means Holy & Honored. Jesus' name is the most powerful name ever spoken.

Joh 14:13-15 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (We discussed two different ways of being saved by the powerful name of Jesus. Our souls being saved from sin...and we being saved from danger by calling upon the name of the Lord.)

Philipians 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

VAIN: Using the Trinity's names in an irreverent or blasphemous manner, considering their names to be worthless, having no real value. Also: To use God's names in a false, evil, destructive manner with guile and deception; for personal profit. (false prophets, false teachers, TBN evangelists).

1. Many use the names of GOD, JESUS, LORD, CHRIST, HOLY (Ghost) as curse words. Christians never want to do this or watch/listen/read to anything/anyone that does.

(Note: We did not say the any of these out loud, but writing them as below, got the point across.)
2. Many use these Holy names in a worthless manner, devaluing their names:
OMG! (spoken or texted...heard on every remodeling show as an exclamation.)
Oh L____! (unfortunately heard sometimes in pulpits)
L____,L____ look who's 40! (frequently written on cakes, signs, etc.)

3. Many use SLANG SUBSTITUTES for the Trinity's names. Some may be considered to be old fashioned words spoken by children in television shows, but the following words were invented to substitute the names of God and Jesus in speech.

(I did write the following down so the kids would get the point...asking them whose name would this word be used as a substitute?)

Gee, Jeez, Gosh, Golly, H___ cow!

4. There are SLANG SUBSTITUTES for curse words.
(we didn't cover this topic any deeper, knowing that they understood ...but old fashioned examples for older teens would be: darn) (Note, that there are many newly minted words out there which adults pick up to be "hip" with the teen culture, but the kids will snicker and tell you that "you shouldn't say that".)

5. There are Slang words that are considered to be "silly words". (the old fashioned word: "fiddlesticks", and the new Disney word: "snap".) However, these "silly words" are often used instead to express frustration or anger, and although we feel they are "innocent", they soon become slang substitutes for much stronger words.

6. We quickly discussed vainly saying "I swear" as trying to convince someone you are telling the truth, and what to correctly say in a court of law, "I affirm".

Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

On every point above, a hand shot up and a couple of times a name was called out before I could ask the children not to name names because we do not need to judge each other, but instead judge ourselves, so that we would not be judged. I embarrassedly admitted to a slang word that I have used out of habit as a teen. I explained to them that I had ignored my parents admonishment (thinking it was only a silly word), and how it became a bad habit that I don't even realise I say anymore. (well a little hand went up and informed me that I had spoken it the night before to Bro. Mike. :( I apologized and told them that I sincerely wanted the Lord to cleanse me of this habit.

One child almost admitted the word they used, but only shook their head in sorrow. I asked that each one us sincerely pray and ask the Lord to reveal to our hearts all our words that displease Him and ask him to forgive us and cleanse us. Also ask the Holy Ghost to convict us if we slipped into that habit again. I also suggested that we could gently remind each other if we heard each other using a vain word by whispering a code word we have chosen: "VAIN".

This was our prayer:

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.