To ‘honour someone’ means: to give them appropriate recognition and place and value. It can be in: an attitude to them; our words; what we do. When we honour people, we place value on them, and we position ourselves so they are lifted up.
It's very important, if we're going to walk successfully and enjoy God's blessing, that we learn: the Principle of Humility; and the Principle of Honour.
There's three grounds upon which you honour people:
1) You Honour them because of: what they have done. If someone does something notable, you should honour it, and value it, and appreciate it.
2) You honour a person's character - the kind of person they are. If someone is courageous, they may never stand out from the crowd, but in a moment of pressure they were courageous. You honour that.
3) We're called to recognise the Position and Rank that people have in our life; to value and esteem them, just because they have their position. That's why the Bible says: “Honour your parents - that it may go well with you”. You say: you don't know what my parents were like... It doesn't matter; you honour them because: that's the positioning that God has given them in your life; and if you do it, you'll come into blessing.
Two principles: Humility - coming into agreement with God about life, and what He says about us, and standing up and believing that what He says is true; and Honour - being willing to give value, and appropriate respect, for people. You'll find it will always release the grace of God.
Having said that; we want to talk and share about how these principles were applied in our life - in relationship to: what happened before we were married; and then how God has worked this out in our lives since then.
[Joy Connell] There's a verse I'd like to share, that the Lord drew to my attention this week. It talked about “preparing the way for the Lord, make straight in the desert”. It was a very ‘desert’ place for many years - a highway for our God - because God wants to come in to desert places.
It said: “Every Valley shall be exalted”. It was certainly a very ‘valley’ time for me - having a child in secret, and releasing it for adoption - a very, very low place. But it said: “Every valley shall be Exalted”. To be there on her wedding was a very high place - amazing.
It said: “Every mountain shall be brought down low”. It was a huge mountain for me, to face my parents at the time of pregnancy. It was just a mountain I couldn't cross. To have all my family there last Saturday, standing with us, was huge.
It said: “The crooked places will be made straight, rough places will be made smooth, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”. We saw the glory of the Lord revealed.
“and all flesh shall see it together”. Everybody there in wedding place saw the glory of the Lord. They didn't know it was the glory of the Lord, but it was.
He said: “The mouth of the Lord has spoken”; because God gave us promises. What He decrees and declares - it does take place.
I believe it's a time for prophetic decrees over many of your mountains. I know many of you are facing mountains, but God can bring them down - and when He does it it's just absolutely amazing.
If you go right back to the beginning of the Bible, when Adam sinned – “through fear he hid himself”. At the time after we'd been dating for about seven years and there was just huge conflicts. The fear - I just took the same response that Adam and Eve did. They just hid themselves with secrecy; and think: this is a way of coping.
I also had inner vows - things you've told yourself in the past, which have become very binding; then, when you face a crisis, you operate out of these things that have been programmed inside you. Even though they're not the best way, it's the way that you do, because of things you've told yourself that you will do.
I was never going to “trap anybody into marrying me”, or go through the shame of the pregnancies and marriages I saw, in the church I was in.