Without honor, ultimately, you have nothing, because even what you think you have becomes a liability on your spirit, your soul, and your relationships. The other day, I was watching a sermon about the challenges King David endured to his kingship. Both serious challenges to his rule, once he became king of Israel, came from his sons. His unruly sons rebelled. When they did, they struck him where he was the most vulnerable – his women, and his favorite son of his illegitimate wife.

For the Godly, a Breach of Honor is Never Without Cost

The difficulty in being a Godly person is that God loves you, and Satan hates you. When Satan hates you, no good deed goes unpunished. Conversely, when God loves you, no mistake goes uncorrected. It is for this reason that the path to salvation is narrow, and once you’re on it, straying from it comes at great cost. That’s where honor plays an important role. Honor is the opposite of sin. “Sin,” as it is translated from the Greek in the New Testament, means to “miss the mark.” Honor, on the other hand, is an internal locus of control which self-corrects the subject. Honor is what prevents you from missing the mark; or else, causes you to correct yourself if you do.

Going back to David, he lost a son, and nearly lost his kingdom. Finally, he nearly lost his choice of heir – all because he stole another man’s wife. This understanding leads to a fascinating insight. It was never God’s plan for David to marry Bathsheba. Therefore, it was never God’s plan for Solomon to be born. Therefore, God’s plan is sometimes subject to change. In fact, God’s relationship to man is not one of “architect,” but, rather is dialectical – both in a colloquial and Hegelian sense. In this case, David altered God’s plan for him, and had to face severe, heartbreaking consequences for it for the rest of his life.

External and Internal Consequences

Ultimately, God wants us to reach a place where fear of the external consequences are not what keep us honorable. Rather, internal consequences do. In other words, we should ultimately be honorable because honor is necessary for its own sake. Just as Jesus pivoted the focus from external obedience to inner purity in his Sermon on the Mount, so we should ultimately be honorable because we understand that the content of our soul is to be valued above any temporal gain.

Revisiting the Dialectic

God changes His plans frequently in the Bible. Among many other instances, He changes His plan in the Garden of Eden, He makes caveats to his plan to burn Sodom and Gomorrah, and He even yields to the will of Jacob when He wrestled with Him in the desert. This means that God is to be assayed by us, and confronted by us, even as we simultaneously submit to Him.

It’s also the case that, rather than making plans for us, God usually creates opportunities for us that we can grasp or not. However, these opportunities are often perilous, and they always are an opportunity for us to confront the deepest parts of ourselves and grow. For this reason, honor is essential. It protects us from sin, even as we encounter the unexpected and unprecedented. Let it be your guide, and you will not fail. What you build will stand. God will accept your offering.