For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21
Over the past few weeks I’ve been writing about the dangers of pride. The ultimate act of pride is to remove God from your world view replacing Him with yourself. Today we focus on two thoughts found here in Roman’s one “…did not Honor Him as God “ and “…(not) give thanks to Him.” I want you to note that proper order is not just acknowledging God’s existence but rather it’s in Honoring Him as God.
We find, in previous verses from Romans chapter one, man’s lack of honor to God is absolutely without excuse. We learn ~ “what can be known of God is plain BECAUSE God HAS shown them.” We are all able to see His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature since they are clearly perceived in things that have been made - nature - animal kingdom - human life, etc. The Bible tells us all are without excuse. Without excuse from what? Without excuse to honor God as God and then give Him thanks. From Jeremiah 2:5 we find the Lord asking “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?” We all know that we eventually become what we follow.
Worship is our agreement with who God is. “Holy. Holy. Holy. Lord, God, Almighty, who was, and is and is to come.” To Honor God, as God, is to magnify, praise and acknowledge His attributes. There is something very humbling about being able to acknowledge there is a God and it’s not us. We do not have the ability to save ourselves. We might like to think we are in control and have all power might and ability, but let us not be deceived, whose power is it that we are graciously allowed to use? Whose name is it that every knee bows to? Holding this awareness keeps all pride at bay. When we try to take the glory and honor to ourselves we begin a slippery slope. It is His power, His might, and His dominion, forever and ever, Amen.
Ecclesiastes instructs us that God has set eternity in the heart of man. There is, in us all, a God given grace to intuitively know the Creator and His ways. Paul, taking advantage of a people serving an unknown God, preached in Acts 17,… “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man nor is he served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind, life and breath and everything. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth determining period and boundaries for them that they should seek after him and find him; for it is in Him that we live and move and have our being.”
We are exhorted from Psalm 100 to enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. We give thanks to Him and bless His name. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians “…in everything give thanks for this is the will of God…”. Our ability to honor and thank God MUST be totally independent of any thoughts, feelings, emotions or immediate circumstances, good or bad. James wrote that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Light. God is good and we have no good apart from Him. It is the fruit of our lips giving thanks that is the sacrifice of praise God looks for in His children.
We ascribe honor and give thanks to Him to remind our selves how great is our God. Honor and thanks recalibrate the human soul and heart of man. Because the people mentioned in Roman’s chapter one didn’t do these things “…their foolish hearts were darkened and they became (due process) futile in their thinking.”
Without honor and thanks being given to God, man begins a progression into this place where he calls evil good and good evil. This lack of honor and thanksgiving is the entrance into all the other unrighteous thoughts and acts, desires and pursuits listed in Romans 1:22-32.
Daily our worship begins with acknowledging who He is, that every good thing we have is BECAUSE of what HE has done. DAILY! We honor HIM. DAILY! In this place of honor we show a reverential fear and understanding of Him. We submit all that we are in this place of worship to the one whose mercy and lovingkindness provides us life and breath.
Pay attention to who gets the glory and the thanks in your life. Live aware that every good and perfect gift that comes to us, comes by the hand of God. Let us remember all life and breath, all blessing, all goodness, all mercy, all help and deliverance, all love and care come ONLY because He is good and this daily remembrance keeps us calibrated to the heart and mind of God and absolutely free from the snare of any pride that would try to exalt itself above the knowledge God.