Honor Follows Honor

I want to share an excerpt from The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer:

Sometimes the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite. Eli and his sons are placed in the priesthood with the stipulation that they honor God in their lives and ministrations. This they fail to do, and God sends Samuel to announce the consequences. Unknown to Eli this law of reciprocal honor has been all the while secretly working, and now the time has come for judgment to fall. Hophni and Phineas , the degenerate priest, fall in battle; the wife of Hophni dies in childbirth; Israel flees before her enemies; the ark of God is captured by the Philistines, and the old man Eli falls backward and dies of a broken neck. This stark, utter tragedy followed upon Eli's failure to honor God.
Now over against this set almost any Biblical character who honestly tried to glorify God in his earthly walk. See how God winked at weakness and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessings untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest followed seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.

Have you ever wondered how God could possibly still accept you and love you and keep you when you seem to constantly fail Him?
I know I have.
I look back and see how far God has brought me and I think, well you know what I'm doing all right.
Then I stand in my present, and I see how I fail miserably, and I think, I am getting nowhere, why does God even bother to put up with me.
It is these moments, these thoughts, that bring me to praise God even more because He did not hide or cover up the failures of His followers.

David was a man after God's own heart not because he was perfect, but because he truly desired to honor God. David failed miserably. David suffered greatly for his failures, but God never forsook him, because God knew David's heart was set to exalt Him. David's failures never came from him trying to set himself up as his own God, they never came from a heart that purposely disregarded the honor due his Creator. His failures came from the result of his sin diseased flesh and when his failures and sin were addressed he dealt with them according to the ways of God. He accepted his consequences and sought God's forgiveness and he moved forward in grace.

When we try to honestly glorify God in our earthly walk the way those recorded in Scripture did, then God will honor us just as He honored them. He will look over failures and wink at our weaknesses because He knows that as we seek to glorify Him and continue to grow in Him, He will be the strength in our weaknesses and He will give us success in spite of our failures. He simply says-- come and follow Me, don't run from Me in your failures and don't try to hide your weaknesses, come to my throne of grace and I will be your help...

  Therefore, since we have a great high priest

who has passed through the heavens,

Jesus the Son of God,

let us hold fast our confession. 

For we do not have a high priest

who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,

but One who has been tempted in all things as we are,

yet without sin. 

Therefore let us draw near with confidence

to the throne of grace,

so that we may receive mercy

and find grace to help in time of need. 

 Hebrews 4:14-16

So the question never is- are you perfect?

But the question is- do you live your life to honor God? 

Because honor will follow honor.

However, on the opposite end, don't think for one minute that any of us will claim to carry the name of God and hold a position of service or ministry in His name and yet fail to honor Him with and in our daily walk and think that just because we are getting away with it thus far that judgment will not come... as we saw with the family and ministry of Eli (1 Samuel 3-4) the law of reciprocal honor is always secretly at work.