All Weekly Sharpening Posts

February 23, 2023

Honor Everyone (Part 1)

There are only two words in this particular command from Peter, but I am finding them embarrassingly difficult to live out.

Peter commands us in 1 Peter 2:17 to honor everyone.

You wouldn’t necessarily know I struggle with this command unless you were a mind reader.  Why?  Because I’m generally a nice guy.  “Nice” can be misinterpreted as showing honor.  “Nice” can be faked.  But I’m learning that showing true honor reveals the character of my heart.

Honoring someone means thinking more highly of him/her than you think of yourself.  Paul puts it this way in Philippians 2:3:  Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Honoring someone means seeing them as worthy of your time and attention.  I have people in my life, like I’m sure you do, who I consider honor worthy.  I look up to them and respect them.  I want to give these people my time and attention.  I want to give them my best.

But Peter isn’t telling us only to honor those we consider worthy.

He’s telling us to honor EVERYONE.

How well do you honor the people God puts on your path?

Think about the people closest to you.

Think about acquaintances and coworkers.

Think about strangers.

Think about cashiers, gas station attendants and fellow drivers.

What does it look like to honor these people?

Is there a disconnect between your attitude and your actions?

There are no loopholes in Peter’s two-word command.

We’ll look more at how well we honor others next week.  In the meantime, I encourage you to take an “honor-everyone-assessment” of your life.

And if you are so bold, tell me what you learned!