The Bible tells us much about honor. It tells us that those who have ears that hear the rebukes of life, will abide among the wise. But we also understand, in the same scripture, we find that he who disdains instruction, despises his own soul.( Proverbs 15:31-33 NKJV ) It is understanding then Who created who......and that the fear we should have, has the example of a reverence and an awe toward He WHO spoke light be and it is still expanding today! It is knowing who is Alpha and Omega.
There are many scriptures on honor and humility, but my favorite are found in Proverbs 22:4 and Proverbs 31:25-26. It is that humility that prepares us for honor. When we give honor to the Lord, it is to highly esteem Him, and that we give Him the distinction of the Holy One, who conquered death, hell and the grave. When we truly seek to praise Him in all His glory, and follow closely to being obedient to that written Word, we discover life, righteousness and honor.
THE God of Love, who gave His only Son, gifted us to become the sons of God. It was by grace that we are saved. That has given us opportunity to express gratitude, to spend time with Him and to know the Creator of all things. He who gives such a life should be feared.
When we view the Cross and the humility of Jesus, He became strong in His humility. He bore our weakness, pain, sickness & disease, but courage was in His heart. His heart was one with God His Father. Oh, to know that kind of humility, that strengthens our hearts in the most painful of times and troubles that darken our pathways, but Jesus was surely strengthened to make that walk to the Cross!
Jesus was ruled not by His flesh but by His spirit man. He gained strength in staying connected to His Father through the Word that brings truth and life to our mortal bodies. Jesus retained riches and honor and life by giving up His life to live for the Father. Jesus was obedient!
I love the scriptures of the virtuous wife. It tells she girds herself with strength and strengthens her arms. She looks to keep fit and looks out for her household, but she also extends her hands to the poor. She is not afraid of any kind of weather, she is on the go and so is her family. They keep their pace for the kingdom of God. Her husband is known in the city gates. He works with his hands and is known as the business leader. As he sits among the doers in the community, it tells that she gains strength and honor. For as she honors her husband and takes care of her family, people will know who she is as she speaks with wisdom, and her tongue with kindness. She is never idle for she keeps watch over the food supplies, the clothes that need to be washed, the dry cleaning taken to the cleaners, and the job that has to be done. It says her lamp does not go out, and I think of how busy she is, but also think she is aware of the IMPORTANCE OF Prayer and word that must be spoken over her husband, her family and the new day coming! But in all this, we are told as she watches over her household, her children and her husband bless her, they praise her for what she does for them. In the end, she has done well, a woman who fears the LORD, is praised! And it is God who will give her the fruit of hands and her own works will praise her in the gates. This is honor!
Honor: a courage and a strength that is seen and causes praise to come to you when you follow hard seeing after the needs of others. Love that never murmurs but does something. Love that speaks and fulfills a job to be done. Love that does something without being told, and does it quickly and even in secret most of the time when no one is looking. It is this kind of serving others in the excellence as Jesus did and that which is given in an amount that is noticeable, it is by words of kindness and sometimes by correction and always by action!
We live in a day and time when people want respect. But do they give respect? People want the glory, but what price did Jesus pay for the glory of God?
People want the name, but do they want to put effort into what it takes to become the name!
People want to be looked up to as the head, as the leader, or as the CEO! But do they understand what it takes to fill that role?
As we see in the Olympics, men and women train year in and year out. They care not of the weather or where they train as long as the job is done. They work their bodies into submission to get the needed strength and endurance it takes to win that Gold Medal! They train while most of us sleep. They train winter, spring, summer, fall, dry or wet, cold or hot, but they continue no matter what the day or night may bring.
I think of the those fighting overseas and on distant lands. I think of those who fight for our country and in those most formidable times of violence, of war and tumult, and they come out victorious to save those they fight with over there against the common enemy. I think of the men who have come from war with no legs or an arm and one leg missing, and suffer with PTSD and still have a medal for valor, or a medal awarded for bravery!
In Proverbs 29 and verse 23b.........but the humble in spirit will retain honor (NKJV) and I think of Jesus, the humble, the wise, the one who took instruction and went to the Cross......and gained honor. He was humble in spirit and spoke no evil, but He did correct them when the correction was needed.
Dare we forget the time of Him driving out the money changers ( the persons who furnished the proselytes and the Jew who came from other countries, with the current coin of Judea, in exchange for their own.coinage ) and those that sold the doves or other. It was those who stood in the area of the priests. These men at the time gained salary by bringing the unmarked and favorable birds and such other animals for the altar. Those who came to offer their sacrifice, had to go through the front of the Temple that was to be for prayer, but those who built up this business, took note if those who might need a worthy sacrifice to offer.........and they told the people who came, if the offering they brought was good enough and if it was not up to what they thought, those working in the temple would get the needed dove, or such bird or animal that was required for their particular sacrifice and sell it for a price! So there was " stinky things going on in the temple" and it was not for prayer. And Jesus came to drive them out! He told them, in Matthew 21:13............"It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'"NKJV
Jesus was giving honor to His Father. He showed not by words alone, but by actions of His faith that the temple was a place of prayer and these men had made it a business! Thus Jesus drove out both the buyers and the sellers. Jesus definitely purged the abuse that was being done in the temple and He, Jesus, established that God's way was for prayer in that place. The action of selling of the bird and such for profit by the priests was a sin, it was ungodliness and was profane as it defiled the sanctuary.
Jesus was directing them back to the practices whose gain is godliness. Jesus uncovered that these priests were living for more support and squeezing the extra money out of the people for their own gain and use. Jesus called them thieves, for they were taking what did not belong to them! When we truly seek to be humble ourselves before the Lord, and come into His sanctuary, we see the majesty of His glory. We bask in the beauty of Who He is in the Love He has for mankind.
It was after the driving out the money changers that the temple gained back the godliness it was meant to have. In Matthew 21:14, the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. Yes, it is in the church, the temple of the Living God, the place Believers go and see the manifested goodness and power of God. It is that power that gives sight to the spiritually blind and feet to the lame.
If you should be in church or body of people who worship or say they do and there is no healing going on in the place.........leave now, and go find where the manifested presence of the Lord of glory resides!
Truly, Jesus came as the Prophet to set in motion those things that had to be corrected. He spoke when He needed to speak and He spoke where people did not have to guess at what He was saying.
We are told in Mark 1:14-15.......... Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.' (NKJV)
He was telling them that change had come, and He was the answer. He was the Savior to the world. It was, and will always be repentance that is God's will and pleasure. (2 Peter 3:9-13) As the prophet, Jesus, gave the matter or the desires of the heart of the Father. It was His Father's desire for man to repent from ungodly ways and turn to the Father.
Today, it still means a cry for a repentance in today's society. Even with all its technology and worldly things, Jesus came to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, and to build and to plant.(Jeremiah 1:10) And today, we can see many folks who love the planting and building! They love the new building and doing the next new thing, but when it comes to getting that nasty root out, that which causes problems like any kind of deceit, choosing to keep the bad apple so it can destroy the whole barrel, so to speak, boy that is hard to do, right? The bad apple can spoil the whole barrel and keep the anointing from operating, But Jesus came to set captives free. He came to break the yokes and remove those things that bind us to the past. Are we setting people free or we making them even more chained to the past problems, the past hurts, the past sins that brought them poor health and maybe even a loss of income? It is time to grow up in the Lord! It is time for the body of Christ to gain courage in the heart and speak what is God's heart!
Today, it still means a cry for a repentance in today's society. Even with all its technology and worldly things, Jesus came to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, and to build and to plant.(Jeremiah 1:10) And today, we can see many folks who love the planting and building! They love the new building and doing the next new thing, but when it comes to getting that nasty root out, that which causes problems like any kind of deceit, choosing to keep the bad apple so it can destroy the whole barrel, so to speak, boy that is hard to do, right? The bad apple can spoil the whole barrel and keep the anointing from operating, But Jesus came to set captives free. He came to break the yokes and remove those things that bind us to the past. Are we setting people free or we making them even more chained to the past problems, the past hurts, the past sins that brought them poor health and maybe even a loss of income? It is time to grow up in the Lord! It is time for the body of Christ to gain courage in the heart and speak what is God's heart!
Jesus lived an intense life, and he walked the narrower path!
Should it not be to us as well, that the sense of duty to honor the Father as Jesus. we too, should be crushed with a godly sorrow for ourselves, for our families, for our community and for our nation?
Jesus came and upset some folks.........he ruined the money changers plans and upset the priests in the temple at that time, but Jesus came and He obeyed. Are we ready to ruffle some feathers for the kingdom of God that has come? It will take courage in the heart just like Jesus had............"do not fear little flock for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32) AMEN!
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