Honorable

Being honorable implies worthy of honor. An honorable person is known for being honest, fair, and worthy of respect. An honorable person seeks to live up to high principles of truth and doing the right thing.  We often call judges and persons who hold high office “your honor”.

Paul reminds the church at Rome about treating everyone with honor and respect. It’s easy to pass judgement on someone for how they look, sound, think or smell. I think I am called to look at others differently because I know the Creator. He created them and me! Check this out…

¹⁷ Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. ¹⁸ Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. (Romans 12:17-18 NLT)

This is harder to do than it sounds. When someone hurts me or my family, I get really frustrated and angry. I immediately want to strike back. I will sometimes say things to my wife and she will let me rant for a minute and remind me that I really can’t literally say those things.

I have learned that forgiveness is really “giving up my right to strike back”. Notice that I do have “rights” and they sometimes get trampled. This doesn’t mean that I’m a doormat. It does mean that when I “push back” on someone who hurts me, I treat them with respect and watch my words. When I’m angry and frustrated, my words and actions reveal whether my heart is in an honorable place. This is way easier to write about than to live out in the heat of the moment.

Paul closes this chapter of Romans with simple instructions. Check this out….

²¹ Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. (Romans 12:21 NLT)

I think this is what it means to be honorable.

Pressing On!

Dwayne