How To Misuse God’s Name In Your Business By Brett Johnson

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Deuteronomy 5:11

Right now you’re probably thinking, “This should be an easy devotional—I don’t blaspheme…” (except when I say, “Oh my God!” – but he knows I mean that in a nice way – or when I get the bajeebies scared out of me and I say, “Sweet Jesus!”). So I am not misusing God’s name in my work… but I will read on to see what the other people are doing.

We have an increasing number of people who claim to have God in their business. Their mission statements even start with “To glorify God through my business…” Some have Christian literature in their lobbies, crosses in the board rooms and fish on their business cards. Others have company prayer meetings, voluntary of course. Others collect prayer requests from customers and genuinely pray for them. Still others have Bible verses on their products. These things may be good, but it is possible to do them and still misuse God’s name in your business or work. How?

Doing business in God’s name without doing business in his way is misusing his name. God is really into alignment. He does not smile on us when we say we are doing business for Him and our business processes are not based on his principles. He is not pleased when we have Christian symbols on the outside but our core practices are pagan. Further, he makes it clear that we cannot claim he is #1 when we make no time for him, his desires, his dreams, or his plans.

Observe the Sabbath day… so that your maidservant and manservant may rest as you do. Deuteronomy 5:12-14

In God’s kingdom we cannot observe the first three commandments—make God #1, no idols, no misusing his name—if we don’t operate from a place of rest (commandment #4). When we do anything from human effort and striving instead of from a place of rest we are blowing it. Yet most of us are so strung out, so stretched, that we don’t have meaningful time for God. We blame it on work, of course, when the matter is not how much we work but how we work. And what about our leisure time, our Facebooking, our shopping, our gyming, or primping, our Christian meetings, our socializing or our sleeping? Are we a people on the move, or a people at rest? Are we making margin for God? The kingdom of this world is marked by hustle and bustle. The kingdom of God is marked by meaningful work, and rest, and margin for God. If you have the outward trappings without the inward rest and practical alignment at the core of your operations, then there’s a good chance you are unwittingly misusing the name of God in your business or career. If the name says “Kingdom business” and the operations say “strive to arrive”…

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God… Deuteronomy 5:11

Application