Where is His Honor?

By Deborah Agustin from Life Hub Blog

Weight comes with value. Just like how weight of a gold determines its purity and value, so it is with how we perceive and give weight to another person. Moral values such as solid integrity, honesty, dependability, and every good works stemming from love are characteristics that can put weight to a person’s value. They are intrinsic but they can be seen outwardly by how a person act.

We tend to give more value to a person who has weighty sense of moral values. We trust them more. We believe in them. We respect them. We look up to them in a certain way. We honor them.

We honor our parents because we love them. We honor our pastors because we care and trust them. We honor our spouses because we show how much we value them. We honor teachers who work hard and patiently teach. We honor doctors who go out of their way to show they care. We honor the person behind the customer service desk because that person has always shown care, interest, and honesty. We honor ordinary persons from different walks of life who showed to us their integrity.

In another view, we also tend to give honor to people of higher educational attainment, those who are wealthy, those who hold high positions, or those who have power. They earn that due to being persons of authority. They earned that because they worked to put weight to their name and their position.

In all these situations, we could see that how we dispense honor and to whom we give honor depends largely on what we see as valuable or weighty.

Does this ring true as to how we honor God? God requires that we honor him as He is. God, the Creator. God as the Author of life. God as the One who controls every force and motion, every cell and atom, and every event and history. God as there is no other gods like Him.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed and were created.”

– Revelation 4:11 (WEB)

God is worthy of highest honor. There are distinct practices in different parts of the world handed down from generation to generation in showing honor to the elderly or to persons of higher authority or position. In the Philippines, showing honor to the elderly in the family is traditionally done through “Mano, po” (literally meaning, “Hand, please) which is an act where a son, daughter, or a child presses the hand of the elderly to his or her forehead. In other countries, honor is shown by bowing down. In many countries, honor is shown by kissing the cheek of the elderly. There may be many other ways of showing honor to the elderly but the same intention lies underneath the acts. Giving honor is really showing respect and reverence to someone.

Showing honor means that we give a person a weighty attention, respect, reverence, and obedience. It is both an intrinsic and extrinsic actions. We believe and we feel it inside us and we acted it out through respect and obedience.

So, God expects that the honor we give Him always accompanies obedience.

How often have we mistreated God? If we could bow down to earthly masters and earthly authorities, how much more should we bow down to God.

Listen and feel the pain and sorrow of God when He was speaking to Israel through Prophet Malachi.

“ A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says Yahweh of Armies to you priests who despise my name. “You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ You offer polluted bread on my altar. You say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ In that you say, ‘Yahweh’s table is contemptible.’”

– Malachi 1:6-7 (WEB)

The same lines, the same words should be ringing in our ears and should be booming out of every pulpit. If God is our Father, where is the honor He deserves? If God is our Master, where is the honor worth of the master?

Perhaps, we could easily response to this as how Israel responded to God’s word of brokenheartedness by asking back to God, “How have we displeased You?” God specifically told them how they have displeased Him when they offered Him offerings that are blind, lame, and sick that not even the governor would be pleased with it (Malachi 1:8). What God deserves is the perfect and unblemished offering of a sheep or a cattle. One that is precious. Would we not give a a perfect gift or a precious gift to the governor or the President of the nation?

How have we displeased God? Half-hearted obedience. Lack of love. Indifference. Half-hearted obedience is no obedience at all. Half-hearted allegiance is no allegiance at all. Half-hearted love is no love at all. God requires all because He deserves all.

When we start following God, somewhere along the way, God lets us realize that it is never enough to show outward pious acts without genuine obedience to Him. He allows us to go to a deeper level of walk with Him where we could see that He deserves nothing less than our all. He deserves the best. Our all is our best. Our all is the precious gift to God. Our surrendered all is the highest honor we can give to God. God does not deserve leftovers. He does not deserve a fit in to our busy schedules. He does not deserve a momentary escape from the pain. He deserves true, lasting, committed, and focused attention, adoration, and obedience, This starts with a desire to give God the best, a simple act of obedience to realize that desire, and complete trust to God to let Him lead and take over as we desire to give Him the highest seat of honor in our life.

“Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31 (WEB)

He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Luke 10:27 (WEB)