Background God

How we shrank him down, and how he walks back in

Honouring God

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!

The Nudge Is Holy

What if God is closer than your hesitation.

Eagerly desire... especially...

Here’s a challenge – have you ever felt that brief nudge from the Spirit and then watched it fade as you hesitated? It’s easy to put the ear plugs in as Paul calls to the church in these difficult days; “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” (1 Corinthians 14.1)

He’s not offering a friendly suggestion that will be attended to by the one extravert in Church. He is giving the church a command that carries weight, because he knows what happens when the people of God stop expecting God to speak through them. The room goes quiet, the saints settle for less, and the church becomes a place of polite faith instead of living encounter.

Here’s the thing. When Paul says earnestly desire, he is calling for a posture of pursuit that refuses to coast. He’s saying literally, keep pursuing and keep zealously desiring. Don’t stop! Desire is not passive. It reaches. It asks again. It knocks until something opens. And prophecy in particular carries this strange quality.

It strengthens and brings great courage comforting the weary and those who are longing for God’s intervention. It also powerfully reminds us that Jesus isn’t some distant character in world history but He’s our Lord, present, speaking, guiding, breathing life into places we’d written off as dead.

What this really means is that ignoring that inner prompting has consequences. Not in a harsh or punitive way, but in the sober sense that one day our lives will be laid bare before the One who entrusted us with His Spirit. Paul says each of us will give an account for what we have done in the body. It is not hard to imagine that part of that moment will involve what we did with the gifts He handed us or told us to seek. Not just how we resisted sin, but how we responded to lavish, unfettered, extravagant grace. Whether we stepped forward when the Spirit whispered speak. Whether we carried His encouragement to someone whose faith was hanging by a thread.

I’m not talking about legalistic pressure. I’m talking about responsibility. There’s a difference. Pressure comes from fear. Responsibility flows from love.

It’s worth pausing for a closer look here. When the Holy Spirit is prompting you there’s a quiet certainty. Perhaps there is a name that won’t leave your mind. A sense that a sentence or picture is sitting right on the edge of your heart. In that moment you are not trying to manufacture something supernatural. You are simply choosing whether to trust the One who knows exactly what another believer needs. When you speak, you do not carry the weight of being right. You carry the weight of being obedient. The Spirit handles the rest.

I wonder if it is possible that one day the Lord will ask us why we stayed silent when we knew the word would strengthen someone. It’s not passive legalism – we have to acknowledge that this is grace-filled invitation. He is too kind to shame us, and too committed to His people to let us drift into safe neutrality. He calls us forward because He knows the joy on the other side of obedience. That obedience means someone is encouraged. Someone is steadied. Someone realises that God has not forgotten them. And you personally get to see grace move through your own voice.

Paul’s imperative still stands. Earnestly desire. Don’t wait for the perfect moment that is like the smoke of a candle in the wind. Don’t wait to feel spiritual enough – the anointing surging through you and your face shining like Moses’ did. No, with simple, faithful, tender-hearted obedience step toward the gift with open hands.

Ask the Spirit to stir what He has already placed within you. Prophesy (share) in humility. Prophesy in love. Prophesy because Christ is alive, risen, reigning, and building His church – and when that prompting comes again, take the step you didn’t take last time. Just do it. Nike! Not to prove anything, but because love compels you and because the grace that saved you is the same grace that speaks through you.