What does it mean to honor God?

To honor Him is to honor the Father, who refuses to be honored any other way. And no wonder; for it is to Him that His God and Father is indebted for being morally glorified in a world that had departed from Him and done Him great wrong — not only among the nations, empty and dark and proud, but among His own people, guiltier and prouder still. Then and there the Lord Jesus vindicated Him, not only in emptying Himself and becoming man, but in humbling Himself when man and being obedient to death — yes, the death of the cross.

Obedience to the law owns God's authority. The obedience of love is the soul's service of gratitude to Him who loves us. The first may honour His authority; the obedience of love may express the devotion of a heart to Him. But nothing can honour God like the "obedience of faith." It accepts the fact that He has revealed Himself as a Saviour.

Whatever our possessions are, our first thought should be how to honor the Lord in the use of them. For all that we have comes from Him... though we are not commanded (as Israel was) to give one-tenth of our income to God, yet we are encouraged in 1 Corinthians 16:2, "on the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper." No exact amount is even suggested, but "as he may prosper" leaves this to the individual's faith.

How can I treat my body as if it were exclusively my own? We are not our own. We are Another's, spirit and soul and body. So "glorify God in your body" is the word for us. The whole idea of the unconverted person is to gratify and glorify themselves in and through their bodies. Let it be ours to gratify and glorify God.

I then understand what the holiness of God is, His rights over my heart, the incompatibility of His nature with evil... that Christ must be honoured at all costs; that only what is like Him honours Him; that His nature and His rights over me are the only rule of my life. What separates me to Him, and according to what He is, separates me by that very fact from evil. One cannot walk with those who dishonour Him and at the same time honour Him in one's own walk.

He always delights to honour His saints in the eyes of others; but then they must not seek their own honour. He will honour His servants; but the moment we step out of the servant's place to take what we judge to be a higher one, He humbles us... No sooner do we assume to be anything than we get out of the servant's place.

He has said, "Those who honour Me I will honour," and this is proved true even where the honour offered may not come from a renewed soul... For example, if God is honoured in a household, if His name is called on there, He will in His government on earth bless that household; and in the same way when the affairs of daily life and business are conducted with the recognition of His name. But this is not salvation; it is temporal mercies according to the principles of God's government.