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.'
Hey my beautiful people! It's August! Despite what's going on in our nation, I'm praying that you all are maintaining your emotional, mental, and spiritual sobriety right now. And I also hope that you're being proactive with practicing self control in your own personal lives. Know that you don't have to respond to everything that runs past you. Mince your words and save your reactions for more profitable pursuits.
Be slow to speak and quick to listen in every arena.
Protect your peace and your power.
Mmmkay?
Guess what I found out? I was intrigued to look up the definition for this month we call August. The origin of its name, is actually part French and Latin. But August means; respected, impressive, distinguished, renowned, celebrated, awe-inspiring, imperial, and majestic.
I never knew this. Did you?
Welp, we learn something new everyday!
How amazing to me that the 8th month of the year with 8 symbolizing new beginnings, holds such remarkable meanings for its name. I honestly believe it will be a month filled with days of honorable mentions, positive receptions, glorious highlights, and timely exposures.
So, with that being said, I decided that I would designate this first blog entry for the month to speak on...
!DRUMROLL PLEASE!
#HONOR.
*And the crowd goes craaaaaazzzy!*
This past weekend I joined some of my fellow worship leaders at this event held by a female apostle in celebration of her birthday. However, this was no ordinary birthday celebration at all. It was an honorbration. I legit just made that word up. Ha!
Anyway, this woman actually hosts this event every year on her birthday. She celebrates her birthday by selecting other men and women in ministry she's encountered throughout her journey and showers them with gifts, prizes, and awards.
YES, ON HER BORN DAY!!!
One of my fellow sister's in Christ happened to be selected as a recipient of this woman's gracious benevolence as well as asked to lead praise and worship for the event. That's how my little baldheaded self was even invited to such an extravagant occasion.
You would have thought this event was a wedding reception!
Me and my group sat down at the table that was reserved for my sister in Christ. She'd informed us that she was running a little late.
Shortly after we arrived though, everyone in the room stood up as if on cue.
Me and my group stayed seated and looked around confused.
Then a tall woman with royal purple eyeshadow and a long feathery skirt in peach, walked in with some people. By the time she made it half way into the room we realized she was the woman of the hour. We of course hurriedly stood up with the rest of the people to play off our lagged timing.
After we dipped off to do vocal warmups and mic checks, the woman of the hour sauntered over to our table. I was kind of nervous. To myself I'm like, "Oh Lord, she's probably going to rebuke us for not standing up automatically when she came in. Don't make any excuses Tanzy! This isn't the place to be an advocate of anything. Just eat the reprimand and do your job!"
When she spoke her voice was deep but soft. She told us that she didn't know our names but she wanted to give us love offerings individually as a token of her appreciation for leading praise and worship for her event.
She handed all of us our own envelopes with a monetary offering.
To top it off after we ministered, her team made sure we were fed with everyone else. Our table, I believe was the second table after hers to be served.
When she was given the microphone to speak, she was sharing about some of the favor she'd been blessed by God to receive to continue to serve her people. The type of favor that has been bestowed to this woman is jaw dropping and awe inspiring.
My city is full of vileness and corruption. Take that into consideration, the favor she received would be enviable to some. Not me though, because I understand how she got it!
!!!!HONOR!!!!
I went home that day overwhelmed with so much joy and amazement. I desire to be blessed to be able to honor people I know, handsomely and unexpectedly for no reason at all.
Now, I've concluded that since we serve a Trinitarian God, meaning He is the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit,
honor should be expressed in three ways.
Every believer no matter title or position, should be humble enough to honor up, honor horizontally which is across, and honor down. We should be willing to honor those ahead of us, honor those who are close to us, and honor those who are behind us. We should be willing to seek out opportunities to do all three on a regular basis.
This sort of honor gives us access to the type of favor we need to make more fluid moves in our journeys.
It's almost like favor is attracted to honor and honor is attracted to favor.
But we should do it as if second nature because it envelopes our honor towards God. Honor is the gesture we express among others to show our reverence to God and if done right (with pure motives) favor is automatic.
Honor can be public and lavish as it wants to be. Or it can be as quiet and behind the scenes as it needs to be. It can show up as public recognition or a gift given discreetly. The objective though, is to esteem the esteemed and pay high respects to the honorable, noble, praiseworthy, and upright.
Why is honor such a big deal?
Honor, believe it or not is love in HD. (high definition)
Bet y'all didn't think y'all was going to see that word again: LOVE. #Boop
There are people, who don't think they need to honor down because of ego. To them, if there is no proof of any benefits to be gained in return, then they'll reject the gesture.
There are people who don't honor across due to jealousy and competition. To them, if they fear them honoring you will take attention away from them, they'll opt out of doing so. Last, there are people who don't honor up because of pride. To them, if they believe honoring you will put you further ahead of them, they will choose not to do so.
I didn't check the temperature of this post beforehand, so you might want to let it cool off and come back at a later time if this subject isn't your strongest suit.
Where were we?
Yeah, if we were to look at honor as but an extension of the first fruit of the spirit- love, then maybe it would be easier for people to show. I say maybe with a strong emphasis.
If we're struggling in our love walks, I'm fairly certain that honoring others in any or all three capacities will be a hard press.
God I hate math but check out these equations for love and honor that I came up with.
Love = Devotion + Action - Emotions (Feelings)
Honor = Devotion + Action - Emotions (Feelings) x RESPECT
Honor, looks like showing the same respect to the CEO AND the janitor.
You see what I did there?
In conjuction with my cute equation, I wholeheartedly believe that your methods of showing honor, then should involve some variant of servitude. Since we all are called to be servants first, honor should be an act of servitude that comes without questions or conditions.
I honor you, as you honor Christ. You honor me, as I honor Christ.
Period!
I've discovered that when we make honor simply about titles and positions, we degrade its potency and true meaning indefinitely.
Yet, if we are going to do anything for God and on behalf of God as it pertains to honor, we are going to have to FIRST,
WATCH THE THRONE.
We are going to have to watch the throne of grace and stop making idols out of the people and places that we were only supposed to serve respectfully.
The confusion comes when people begin to turn into obsessed fans of people in high positions assuming that this is honor and then treat everybody else including their neighbors as peasants and peons.
#Negative.
Jesus never asked for his servants to make fans of men, anyway.
Yet to make disciples of all nations.
There is a distinct difference between a fan and a disciple.
Fans can't reproduce. They only regurgitate.
They are inflamed fanners of flames even if those flames comes from strange fires.
(Try to say that fast. Ha!)
I'm not even trying to hurt nobody's feelings.
Then again...
We should let Beyonce have her "beyhive." But the kingdom of God doesn't have use for them. The kingdom of God needs pure altars!
Moreover, we also need to understand that honor without accountability is idolatry and accountability without honor is abuse. Many would like for people to honor them while also refusing accountability. Failing to realize that one who is aiming to honor Christ can't honor that which operates in error (lacking accountability) because then they themselves will be put in a very volatile situation.
Many would like to hold people accountable of whom they do not honor. Attempting to correct someone that you don't respect will come off as unsolicited, heavy handed, judgments. All of that done repetitiously, morphs into hateful abuse.
Let us for a moment take a look at two individuals;
Hophni (hoff-nee) and Phinehas (fin-ay-us).
In 1st Samuel chapter 2, it says that these two brothers who were the sons of a priest (Eli) were dishonorable, disgraceful, ignoramuses. They lacked principle and they didn't respect God.
Basically, they didn't honor the people's sacrifices to God, they disrespected the people's offerings by taking the bulk of it for themselves, and they simply abused their privileges by sleeping with the women who served at the tabernacle.
This passage stated that Eli, their father, was catching wind of all of their misdeeds and barely even attempted to extinguish their blasphemous indiscretions. God responded to Eli's purposeful negligence, with a harsh rebuke. Involving the renunciation of His favor and protection, and the removal of His grace from their entire house.
#Shooketh
1 Peter 2:17
Show respect for all people [treat them honorably], love the brotherhood [of believers], fear God, honor the king.
Hophni and Phinehas represents the kind of people today, who assume roles of lawlessness and believe that they are above reproach and that they can frolic along the borders of dishonor just based off of the positions they hold and/or the associations they keep.
So they dabble in unholy affairs, they step on people, and hide behind their positions of authority and partnerships.
Eli represents those who dishonor God by their refusal to utilize the authority He gave them to correct his servants either due to fear or familiarity.
Either way, God's rebuke was and is warranted.
We must all be compelled in this hour to make a consorted effort to reestablish the definitions of honor in God's house and His kingdom.
We must place God back at the center of the altars of honor.
Making it less about positions, functions, and connections, but more about the Christ we serve and our reverence of Him.
Honor is not one sided or unilateral.
It is universal. It is bold. It is deliberate. It is direct.
Honor corrects. Honor protects. Honor respects.
Honor covers.
Honor celebrates.
Honor, loves and loves ALL.
We can't expect favor from people that we show no honor. We can't expect favor in places we dishonor. If you have to tell someone to honor you, then it's safe to assume that it's just not in them to honor you.
A heart postured in the direction of the grace of God will find no problems with honoring anyone at any given time and will lay down, and be a bridge to love.
Honor is the exponent of a surrendered heart.
Most importantly, we can't expect favor from God if we dishonor Him by crafting golden calves in place of Him.
Perverted honor and I'll add unrequited honor,
is nothing but the little gold plated legs of idolatry.
We must forgo all idolatrous behavior!
Get rid of all of our idols and unholy rituals and practices!
Set these things ABLAZE immediately,
so we can watch the throne.
Oooooooooooooooohhhhh my, my, my!!! This by far may be my favorite blog post!!! This was good! I am definitely sharing!!!
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