Honor!

Honor: 

a showing of usually merited respect : recognition

What is honor?

It is a person who conducts himself in a noteworthy way.  Someone who esteems his life as worth something to God and therefore acts godly.  To honor someone or something is to cherish or value it as special, above the commonplace.  We honor many things in life, things that we place a high priority in or on.  We hopefully honor family by setting aside time, money and love for our family.  We honor truth by despising lies.  We honor life by hating murder.  We honor justice by cherishing equality and freedom!

God expects His people to be honorable by first honoring Him above all else.  We honor God by esteeming or valuing Him above all else, even our own lives.  We cherish His Word (the Bible), obey what He said and love what He loves.  By doing this, we become people of honor.  We become honorable and prove to Him that we honor Him.

I pray that we all learned to be honorable in our lives this year:  To honor God with ALL of our thoughts, intentions, words, attitudes and actions.  We failed to do that at times (of that I am sure), but we can repent, seek the forgiveness that Christ offers and thereby honor His sacrifice and trust His word to forgive because Jesus paid for our sin.

^{1 Samuel 2:30 -} Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

This verse teaches us that true honor comes when we esteem God for who He says He is.  God is the only one who can reward us with true honor, elevating us to the individual platforms that He bestows.  If we make Him THE priority in our lives, He will honor us, provide for us and reward us with a greater influence over others so we can continue to honor Him in front of a bigger audience!