Thursday, November 06, 2008

A Culture of Honor

(The bulk of the following has been brewing in my spirit for many days leading up to the national general election of 2008. As you can tell, the first paragraph is specific to the very day of the election, but beyond that, these are words that the Holy Spirit has been perfecting within me).

I am writing this on the morning of November 4, 2008. There are no election returns in yet but I am thrilled to see lines all over the country as voter turn out is literally off the charts. Some of the pundits say that this bodes well for one party over the other but I say, regardless, this bodes well for our nation! I have longed to see this kind of involvement since the day I cast my first vote in 1972.

Whoever the new president is, I honor him now. I am personally committed to making a break with the past extreme partisan nastiness that has soiled the American soul for at least the past 16 years. I’m starting my own campaign, beginning now, for a national healing renewal that begins and ends in the Church (which, by the way, should have always been in the Church) as it relates to our relationship to governing authorities and beyond.

My apostolic father, Bill Johnson, when pondering the formation of a network of churches and ministries, wondered aloud several months ago, “How far could we go in a culture of honor?” He voiced this as others around him were pressing for a more formalized and legislated mechanism of relationship. That simple revelation of honor is now becoming a thriving spiritual family spreading the revival dynamics of the Kingdom of God internationally.

I Peter 2:17 says, “Honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King.” The first mention in that verse of honor is the greek word “tee-may-o” which means to prize, fix a valuation on and value with reverence. The second word is “tim-may” which actually ratchets up the stakes of the word to mean pay a price for value, to have esteem and dignity and to view as precious. Have you discovered that people will generally live up (or down, as the case may be) to the value you genuinely place in them? In our society’s full court press to teach “self-esteem” to our children, have we inadvertently omitted the possibility that esteem for self may be best built and expressed in a healthy and holy esteem for others?

Our current political climate has pretty much created a national sport of blasting the esteem out of others in a naked attempt to achieve our ambitions. Then when the elections are over we reap what we’ve sown as we go after the folks at the top until we can successfully blast them out of any esteem or value and this cycle goes on and on, and worse and worse.

My goal today is to be one person in my place of influence to put an end to that cycle. We can no longer wait for someone else to do this. We can no longer wait for “our” person to win an office before we decide to do the honor thing. In fact, the purest honor, the most tested and reliable honor is honor placed somewhere and in someone where it has cost you something to give it! I would go so far as to suggest that honor isn’t honor UNTIL it costs you something.

I admire the skills of a good comedian. Dennis Miller is a good comedian, not my favorite comedian, but a very skilled one. Recently, on a late night show he was in rare form lampooning Senator Obama. Suddenly, he reined in his monologue and took a serious turn. In a rare move for any comedian he apologized for a part of his verbal run that made fun of the Obama family. And then he said, “Listen, whoever wins this election…could we all agree now to avoid making the new president yet another anti-Christ?” The crowd cheered. This resonates with what I’m sharing here.

What would it look like if people of faith bestowed an outrageous spirit of blessing and honor, even on those we might deem had nothing intrinsically deserving of the same? What would it look like for us to be genuinely and profoundly thankful as we prayed for those in authority? (I Timothy 2:1-3) What would it look like for a body of believers to be an army unarmed by human resources yet heavily armed by Kingdom Resources who determine ALWAYS and in ALL THINGS to overcome evil (real or perceived) WITH GOOD? (Romans 12)

In Isaiah 44 and 45 the prophet speaks a Kingdom declaration on the pagan king of Persia and calls him “My Shepherd” (44:28) and “anointed” (45:1) Ezra 1 says that the expenses for Judah’s return to her land and the restoration of the temple came “by the hand” of that pagan government. If God can call Cyrus anointed, who am I to think that God could not do the same with someone elected to such an influencial position as the presidency?

Did you know that in his run for the presidency Abraham Lincoln promised to uphold State’s Rights in slavery and yet he is best known now for the Emancipation Proclamation (which overturned the State's rights with federal power)? What’s the greater miracle? That a pro-life president get elected? Or that a pro-choice president might have a change of heart?

What deeply concerns me in today's Christian "world-view" is that far too much of it is fear based and enslaved to the narrow view that our highest and best exercise of "power" is political. What political power did Jesus wield? How often did Jesus preach political activism against the raging vicious power of Rome? Never! And yet, where is the center of the world's largest Christian denomination today? ROME! How was Rome defeated? By the subtle servant King who healed the sick and made broken hearts whole again.

I am certainly not suggesting that we should take some lazy approach of political nuetrality....a snoozy "whatever" approach. On the contrary, I believe that the passage I referenced above (I Peter 2) demands of us in verse 12 "good works". Works so incredibly excellent and self-less that the world observing us sees them and shouts, "GLORY TO GOD!" It's one thing for us to sing "glory to God" in the comfort of our worship services....it is quite another thing to do something so God glorifying that a watching world can not hold back their praise to God because of what they see in us!

1 comment:

Bestemor said...

Hum, I thought I left a message and forwarded your writing to some of my family and friends. Now, I am at a different site and I don't see what I wrote and I'm not sure it forwarded.

You are so right on Young Man! I told my good friend that I would write a letter eventually that promotes love and respect. I do believe your writing does encourage people to love regardless of the cost. I'm going to forward your writing to others in the hope that they will get it and see the love, respect and acceptance in the writing, as well as the love God intends us to promote! Thanks so much for being willing to be God's man.

Be so very blessed! NJ