FRIDAY November 3rd
I am travelling out to Hungary later on today and will return on Tuesday evening, so the devotions will return on the Wednesday morning.
HONOUR – 1 Peter 2:17-3:7
‘Honour everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly . . . Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct . . . Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honour to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.’
To honour means to respect or pay tribute to, so first and foremost we honour God by giving tribute to him – One of the older hymns we sometimes sing: Praise my soul the King of Heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring. And why? Because we have been ransomed, healed restored forgiven. Therefore, who like thee his praise should sing. So praise him, praise him, praise him, praise him, Praise the everlasting king.
In Psalm 103 David says, ‘Bless the LORD O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name. Sometimes we praise as if we have all had a battery installed in us and it has gone flat! All that is within me just doesn’t seem to want to get up and get going, when we really consider what God has done for us, we should be breaking out in praise like a bird that has been locked up is set free. There is no stopping! He deserves our tribute, he deserves all the honour, glory and praise that we can b muster up and bring out from our inner being.
But primarily Peters letter is all about the honour we give on a vertical level – he says honour everyone! Those in places of honour, to the brotherhood, that is toward one another in the local Church and then the honour that should be shown in the home, the institution of the family, which is actually the first institution that God established right from the time of creation. One of the biggest causes of problems in the world today is because the honour that should have been found in the home began to breakdown. That is why we should pray, pray, and pray for families, especially those who are found in the household of God.