How we shrank him down, and how he walks back in
Those who honour me I will honour. The text sounds simple until you sit with it and realise how much it is asking of you…
In 1 Samuel 2:30 God speaks into a corrupt spiritual house. Eli’s sons are mishandling sacrifices, despising what is holy while still wearing priestly garments. The appearances-only system keeps turning, but the fear of the Lord has drained away. God steps in and addresses it up close, “those who honour me I will honour, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed”. It sounds glorious and noble (and it is) but the stark truth, the elephant in the room is He refuses to authenticate their ministry.
It’s not an isolated moment in God’s dealings with the Earthlings! Isaiah 66:2 rails, “this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word”. It’s the same God, same heartbeat. The one he esteems is not the impressive one, the loud and seemingly charismatic one, or the one most like your favourite preacher. It is the one who has learned to let his word carry real weight.
Here is the thing. When you hear language like honour, esteem, trembling, something in you might twitch. You start to wonder whether you are doing enough, whether you are about to be “lightly esteemed.” That fear can either drive you into performance or into quiet despair, but both miss the point.
To honour God is to agree with reality. He is holy. He is centre. He is not decoration for your life, he is the reason you have one. When his word speaks, it is not advice for consideration, it is reality calling you back to itself. To Him.
Trembling at his word is not panicking or quaking in his presence. (quaking not quacking.) It’s that deep inner acknowledgement of “You are God and I am not, and your voice defines what is true.” It looks like stopping when his word confronts you, instead of explaining it away or putting the TV on. It looks like adjusting your decisions when Scripture and your preferences collide. It looks like being more concerned with what he has said than with what people might think. When that happens, that clash of values – be encouraged – that’s when God is at work!
Eli’s sons however, treated the word of the Lord as a formality. They knew the rituals but their hearts were elsewhere. Honour was on their lips, not in their choices or their heart. That is sobering, because it means you can be around spiritual activity and still be coldly casual with what God actually says.
Now take a long look at Jesus, whose life perfectly models and reflects 1 Samuel 2:30 and Isaiah 66:2. He lived with the steady, unbroken and relentless posture that He always did the things that are pleasing to God. He honours the Father by listening, by obeying, by letting the word shape every step. In the wilderness, he does not negotiate with temptation but answers with “it is written.” In the dark terror of Gethsemane, sweating blood, he still unswervingly yields to the Father’s will. That is a perfect example of trembling at the word, not as fear, but as trust.
At the cross, the One who honoured the Father most is treated as if he despised him. This is important, and encouraging – He takes our indifference, our selective obedience, our casual handling of holy things – He carries all of it. Then the Father raises him, publicly honouring the Son the world had rejected. Resurrection is the Father’s declaration, “this is what I do with the One who honours me.” (See Revelation 7 to see how the people cheer.)
Here is where this becomes good news for you. You are not standing outside, trying to earn a place among the honoured. In Christ, you are already brought into the One the Father esteems. The Spirit is given to write that same posture into your heart. He does not just wave a standard requirement at you and leave. He softens what is hard, convicts what is stubborn – and then makes the word come alive until trembling becomes joy and delight, not terror.
When you open Scripture and feel that sharp edge as it paper-cuts across your pride, your habits, your grudges, you are not being crushed, you are being invited, loved and transformed. When you choose to repent quickly (the Greek is “don’t be daft, do it now – why wait?”) rather than excuse yourself, heaven calls that honour. When you hold your tongue instead of giving ‘‘both barrels”, because his word checks you, that there, is trembling. When you build your decisions and life around what God has actually said, not just what you feel in the moment, you are walking in the path that attracts His blessing.
You might feel a little ‘hidden’. Nobody sees the quiet choices you are making. Nobody hears the whispered yes or the late-night prayer where you lay your will down again. But he actually does.
Let this get under your skin for the days ahead. “Those who honour me I will honour.” This is the one to whom I will look.” At the cross, Jesus traded your light esteem of God for his perfect honour of the Father. Now, by the Spirit, you get to live as someone God himself delights to watch, as his word shapes you from the inside out. That, is joy unspeakable, full of glory!