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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Everyone

The last few weeks we looked at obeying and honor. We started with obeying our parents and then moved to honoring people in positions. That will also include honoring our parents too. As mentioned before there is a lot to the word honor, and there are a lot of ways to demonstrate honor. But who are we to honor? Only the ones in positions, parents, the ones who have done something great... Special people! Yes, that is the way we think, believe it or not. Now in the bible there is this verse; 1Peter2:17 "Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."
" Honor all people"; that puts a whole new perspective into our lives. If you are like me it gives me a lot to think about. We are to honor everyone. Doesn't one need to do something to be honored? Seriously, did that question come up in your mind? Yes, everyone deserves honor. Not because they are so and so or did such and such, but because they are a person. Or better yet a person created by the one true God. Now some that we honor are children of God, "believers". We even have a hard time with that. Think about it we have a hard time showing honor.
Like holding a door open for someone...helping one in need, letting another go before you; saying thank you; welcoming each other; being happy for someone; crying with someone; giving to someone...but the most would be in our minds to think, everyone deserves honor. From the "lowly"--to the "highly" and we must be aware not to get caught showing partiality. Everyone deserves honor. Yes, I too need to work on that. James2:1-4 "My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, 'You sit here in a good place', and you say to the poor man, 'You stand over there, or sit down by my foot stool.'"
Let me say it is not only limited to the rich and poor. It reaches over to all aspects of life; race, culture, countries, towns, cities....Showing honor is a hard thing to do. We must begin showing honor more and more to everyone.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Honoring positions

Honor it is hard to give. Think about it, when we do give honor it is only for a moment, a hour, a day, a week...Seriously we tend to give honor for a short period of time. An athlete maybe the best at a certain time but the next year he doesn't perform as good...or didn't win; well he loses all his honor...Think about it, the best of the world come together every four years to compete. The best of the best but if one doesn't win the gold; for the most part he/she is looked down upon...they let us down... and sometimes we tell them, from the stands, how bad they are...sometimes people act like they could do the task...or play better. You know for the most part these people trained, studied...to be where they are. Think about it some of these people are one of the best in the world for what they are doing, and we don't give them honor for the great achievement they have done; even if they never become number one.
In our society we need to honor those who are in a position that deserves honor. Be it a president, vice president, senator, congressmen, mayor, judge, policeman/women, fireman/women and ...Yes, I know there are good ones and bad ones of the above but the fact is that we honor the position that they hold. It is easy to honor someone when they do an outstanding deed... but we also need to honor when they are doing the routine deeds. How about when they are trying hard and it does not work out the way it should have...when things...just seem to go wrong. So we need to honor people in positions be it in government, at work, people doing special things...Yes, we need to give honor. Now let me use one more word that is part of honor, respect. Respect- to consider worthy of high regard. Rom.13:7 "Render to all what is due them: tax to who tax is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor.
Think about it sometimes the ones we honor is not that they did something...but rather that they have a position, a title...that brings honor. At the same time we also must remember the ones who have done something...that deserve honor.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Honor, let's start

Last week we talked about obeying; children obeying their parents... Hopefully as adults we also learned to obey. For if we do not learn, or have a good grip on the obey thing, we will also struggle with the next topic. That would be honor. Honor is more involved than most of us think. So we will take a look at what honor means and how do we apply it in our daily living.
First let's look at one part of the definition of honor: an exalted title or rank. Last week we mentioned that we need to learn to obey; we used as our example obeying our father and mother. But in scripture it also tells us to honor our parents. Deu. 5:16 "Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days will be long , and that it may will go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." What does it mean to honor? That is the question we all need to figure out. It means more than obeying. Even though obeying is still part of the answer.
Before we continue, let us all recognize that there are types of fathers and mothers. Good ones, alright ones, o.k. ones, bad ones, real bad ones, out of the picture ones, ...But let us all remember that just like our fathers and mothers we all are with our short comings in some way. There is also one common thing that we all have; we all have a father and a mother. With that we all need to bestow on them honor. It is not a question of if they deserve it...or if in our eyes they have earned it...They are your parents and with being your parents they deserve honor. It is not a choice, it is a command of God. As in following the obeying thing helps us in our lives so does giving honor to our parents. Oh, but you do not know my father/mother...Yes, I do understand some situations(not all) that it wasn't good. The point is if you are willing to do what is right. To make a difference. How do we honor them? Father's day, Mother's day, birthdays...inviting them to things...now here is the deal, loving them. Yes it is hard for some of us. We are hurt...in all types of ways...but giving honor maybe the beginning of healing....making the difference.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

New series

The next topic I would like to talk about is going to take a long time. Yes, maybe even longer than the last; dealing with sin. What is this topic you ask? Well it is best described in a statement...or a title. "We are men and we do what men do; so what are we to do?". Stop and read that over a few times. Did you get questions in your mind of what are we to do? Did you wonder if what you are doing is the right thing/way...to do things? Or did you go right to the things that men do for fun, sports... As you can see it is a big topic! With that let us all understand that we will more than likely only cover some areas of this topic and that even these areas may be covered in a small way. The goal is to help us to act more as real men.
Where do we start? I believe that we need to go all the way back to when we were young. How young? Well let's not get caught up with the age thing, it will be more important now to grasp the principle. The principle will be obedience or to obey. Eph. 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." This principle of obedience will never end for us. So it begins for all of us as children, we are to obey our parents. Some of us did well here, some not so well and some of us started well, then lost ground during the teen years...some who started off not well, turned during those teen years to do well; and believe it or not some just have a hard time for a very long time. But if we look at our lives most of us will probably see an up (obeying) and down (disobeying) imposing thing. Something that our parents used to keep us from...fun. As we get older this obeying thing does not go away. If we take the time to think about it, as adults we have to obey even more. As we get older we need to be more responsible. Have you heard those words before? They are true, the older we get the more choices we have. And with the more things we can do... there seems also to be laws and rules that we need to obey or follow. How are you, how am I with obeying the rules...How are you, how am I with obeying the one true God and His laws..?pattern. We do good then all of a sudden were not doing good, in this obeying thing. Really, it is hard!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Illness

It's been a few weeks since I posted. Well illness came upon me. The past few weeks... the flu has been around. Every so often I thought I had it... but I would get some what better. Then bang! Guess what it was not the flu. So now I am on the road to recovery and will be posting weekly(or some what) again. Hopefully this ministry will be helpful to you all and a blessing. Thanks for being patient, Peter Dee