If you look closely enough, you can find something to honor in everyone. Natural human love looks for something to honor in the people we like and stops looking in people who are different from us. Supernatural love keeps looking, keeps hoping, and keeps finding ways to honor others – even when those ways are hard to see. This is very important because wherever honor is, life flows. Dishonor quenches life and produces death.

The love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before time was a perfect picture of honor. The Trinity models honor for us. The Father honors the Son and the Spirit, the Son honors the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit honors the Father and the Son. This continuing cycle of honor creates oneness and makes life flow constantly.

This is how things operate in the Kingdom of God. It is a culture of honor. The family of Heaven and Kingdom families on earth are kept together by the superglue of honor. 

Have you ever noticed how Jesus honored even those who dishonored Him? He honored His own followers too, but many of the people dishonored by society – demoniacs, tax collectors, women with bad reputations – had their honor restored by the words He spoke and the works He did. Regardless of how people looked on the outside, Jesus saw something to honor on the inside. He saw the real identity the Father had given them. 

Imagine what that would look like today. Think about the political figure you can tolerate the least. Picture yourself saying, “He/she is fearfully and wonderfully made, beloved and adored, so important that Jesus died for this person. I honor this person because Jesus does.”

If you have become immersed in the culture of social media, you will not be able to say this very easily. If you read those comments and have conversations about current events, you know how rare it is to hear or see words like this about a political adversary. 

Imagine speaking highly about society’s outcasts, blessing people who make hateful comments online, or praying for terrorists because you know that even though their acts are serving the kingdom of darkness, their souls are precious to God. 

If our love does not look like honor, it cannot be a reflection of the Father’s love. We need to reevaluate the source because the love of Jesus is rooted in honor. In our current culture, where dishonor is normal, people are often surprised when they experience someone responding from a place of honor. Actually, they are surprised when they see any evidence of supernatural love. 

I hope you notice that there is an opportunity in that. If supernatural love and honor are so rare, and if this kind of expression of the Father’s love surprises people, then we have a greater opportunity than ever to demonstrate who God is to the world around us. 

As the world seems increasingly divided, we can choose to love and honor God’s way, without an agenda or hook. But our love must be more than words. When love is genuine, it’s in our hearts, our words, and our actions. It looks very much like Jesus.