I found, well, he'd just had a falling out not only with the cell leader. He'd also had a falling out with his boss. I said well how did you get on in the last job? Same thing happened. I said well before that you were in the army, how'd that work? He said oh, I love the army. I said but how did you get on with those who were officers? Oh, well, you know, I never got on with them. I said oh really, how did you get on at school then? He said oh, I never got on with the teachers, you know, they were always picking on me. I said is that right? I said tell me about your father. He said well I had a row with him, he kicked me out of the home. He said anyway, it wasn't my father. I was adopted and I said I wonder if you can see that the problem that is representing itself over and over in your life is that you have an unresolved conflict with your natural father and mother who for some reason adopted you out. You've never resolved what's in your heart with them. It's replayed with your adoptive parents and it's replayed in every situation involving an authority figure in your life.
Now whenever we encounter authority figures or people who have a realm or sphere of authority, whether they fulfil it well or badly or however they do it, they represent the authority of God. So the first people you meet in your life that represent God to you are your parents and they may completely misrepresent God, not necessarily because they want to or because they didn't set out to do their best, but because they were broken themselves. How you respond to these first representatives of God in your life sets you up for how you'll respond all the way through your life until you deal with it. So I want to just show you a couple of scriptures. The first one is found in Psalm 100.
First let's look at the word honour and interesting, Jurgen was just talking about it; it's to place value on someone. Now I want to just show you two scriptures that are connected in relationship to your walk with God. In Psalm 100, Verse 4, it tells us specifically how to engage with the presence of God. It tells us specifically what to do and notice it tells us here to come into the presence of God and in Psalm 100 it says - Verse 4 - enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, be thankful unto Him and bless His name for He is good.
So it tells us then that if we are to come near to God we come near firstly with gratitude in our heart and appreciation for what He's done; secondly, we honour Him so to praise Him is to lift Him up and so forth. It is to give honour to Him. So honour and gratitude enable us to enter the presence of God. Honour and gratitude attract the presence of God to us.
Now I want you to have a look in Romans 1, Verse 21. So whatever you place honour and value upon will be attracted to you. Whatever you dishonour and disrespect will move away from you. Now notice in Romans 1 and Verse 21 and it says because although they knew God they did not glorify Him or honour Him as God, neither were they thankful but become futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. So it's talking about people who once knew God and notice what it says they failed to do; they failed to be thankful and grateful and they failed to give Him honour, so you notice what happened. When that happened there's a darkness came in the thinking or putting it another way, the way they related to God changed.
So we see there in two scriptures, one tells us that coming near to God we need to honour Him and thank Him and be appreciative to Him, so the primary authority in our life which is God Himself to come into His presence requires honour and respect and gratitude. That's how you approach Him, see? Now you notice it says when we are ungrateful and when we dishonour Him we draw away from Him. It's our thinking about Him changes and if you follow the pattern there it goes in a downward spiral, completely away until people are totally alienated from God. So notice how honour draws us into the presence of God, but dishonour moves us away from the presence of God and brings our life into darkness.