I’m so excited for writing here at Feelin’ Feminine. Thanks to Miss Jocelyn for giving me this opportunity to share things that is in my heart. I would really like to share here a lot of stuff about femininity but I felt from the Lord that I should talk about something not only restrictive to ladies, but it’s very important too. I’m going to talk about honoring authorities in our lives and how it should function in our every-day life.

The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:1-3 this:

Children, what you should do in union with the Lord is obey your parents, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” – this is the first commandment that embodies a promise – 3 “so that it may go well with you, and you may live long in the Land.

When I first read that portion four years ago, I wondered with myself, “So am I supposed to agree with everything my parents say and think? What if they ask me to do something ungodly, should I do that?” If that’s true, people who’s parents do not know the Lord will have to dishonor Him so that they can honor their parents. I know people that still struggle with that commandment to this day.

But what does “to honor” really mean? Let’s see what the dictionary tells us about (it’s appeared too many results so I just copied here the most relevant ones):

honor: –verb (used with object)
to hold in honor or high respect;
to treat with honor.
to confer honor or distinction upon.
to show a courteous regard for.
to accept as valid and conform to the request or demands of.

I think the last definition “to accept as valid” is the clearest to understand the concept of honor. It has nothing to do with what I thought above. For instance, when you go shopping and you see a poster saying “We honor VISA”. What does that mean actually? It means “We accept VISA as a valid credit card”, right? What if the poster said “we dishonor VISA here”, it would mean that they do not accept VISA as valid there.

Now I want to bring that same concept to how we should relate to authority. After Yahweh, if you are a single person who is the highest authority in your life? Your parents! According to Ephesians 6:1-4 as children we are supposed to honor our parents so that we may live long on the earth. That’s God’s promise to children, not to parents. But how to honor our parents when they don’t deserve our honor, when they fail us or when they hurt us? The only way to honor them is doing what Yahweh does to us: to separate IDENTITY from BEHAVIOR.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in that the Messiah died on our behalf while we were still sinners.

Romans 5:8

God loves us according to what we are, not according to what we do. God separates our identity from our behavior. Even when we do everything wrong Yahweh still loves us and He still approach us kindly and lovely. Crucified on the stake Yahushua the Messiah looked at us and said “they are worth the effort because they are precious to me and I love them”.

My parents are not Believers, and a lot of times I didn’t honor them because I thought they did not deserve my honor. And I see many of friends doing the same. When parents are blessing us, it’s alright and easy to honor them, but when parents consistently fail us, it’s emotionally hard to honor a father and mother because we often don’t do what Yahweh does. So we should honor our parents according to what God thinks they are (identity) regardless the way they tread us. Yahweh loves our parents and they are special just because God has chosen them to be our parents.

Changing the scenario, in a marriage relationship you also need to separate identity of your spouse from his or her behavior. He or she will probably fail sometime or another and you will have be able to honor regardless that. When women and men understand their commandment to honor their parents, the marriage experience will be full of His glory and will flow His love through husband and wife.

How do you honor your parent in a practical way? It’s very simple and powerful. We’ve just learned that honor is just to accept as valid. So you can today ask God how He sees your parents, their personal qualities, and their identity (look on the Scriptures too). Ask him to show you of what He thinks and write down what he reveals. Look at one’s eyes and tell them what you wrote. If you dishonored them in the past now it’s time to ask forgiveness and to confess that you didn’t know how to honor but now Yahweh is teaching you how to do that on a daily-basis. Doing that you are accepting them as valid (good) parents, you are obeying God’s commandment and your life on earth has been just increased some years (Ephesians 6).

If you are married, do the same. Ask Yahweh about your spouse’s qualities and identity according to Him, who he or she really is and write down what you think he’s showing you. Later you can deeply look at his/her eyes and say that you love him/her, how precious he or she is to God and to you, and the qualities you found in him/her.

Honoring authorities are scripturally-ordained and powerful. If we do that we will live well on earth, and we will be a blessing to life, our parents, spouses, children and our entire heritage.

Related Articles

• In Proper Perspective: Parameters of Purity (1)
• In Proper Perspective: He’s Sweet On You! (14)
• What’s Your Story? One of the Guys (7)