Most folks want to be appreciated by others.  Prov. 18:12 (NKJV) "Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility."  In this passage we find the prideful man is headed for calamity and that humility precedes honor.  I've heard it said that a person’s attitude will control their altitude.  There seems to be a paradox here.  The person that has an inflated opinion of themselves is headed for deflation.   While the individual that is humble finds appreciation and honor.  Therefore, "in order for one to go up, they must first go down."  Without humility there can be no genuine honor.  Real humility is self imposed.  

Pressures cause our hearts to be exposed. Most of the time I don't like what pressure brings out in me.  However, it does give me the ability to evaluate my own heart.  I have taught my grand children, the reason we do right is because it is right.   Honorable people always try to conduct themselves righteously even in the gravest circumstance.  It takes focus and work to maintain an excellent spirit. 

My dad use to say he loved working with honey bees.  I asked him, "Why?"  He said, "Honey bees were the only thing in life he didn't have to stand over and make them work.  They just get up in the morning, fly away from the hive, and go to work."  In the same way honorable people are governed by unseen values.  No one has to watch them; no one has to make them do what's right.  They answer to hidden principles and unseen values.  They hold themselves accountable.  What you see is really what you get.  They are not role playing and their integrity is through and through. 

We may not know the leaders that wrote our constitution or implemented the rule of law in our nation.  Yet our lives are governed by both.  I am thankful we are a nation of laws.  Laws hold back the tide of evil.  Those that operate in independent self interests are on a collision course with that rule of law.  Where there is no recognition of a higher will or way than self, there cannot be government.  Where there is no government there is no honor. 

Kingdom honor has to do with walking in the ways and principles of the Kingdom of God.  Those that express His kingdom have since of God’s presence on them.  They look like, walk like, and talk like God.  They love right and hate wrong.  They are submitted to the Lordship of Jesus and their lives echo his virtue. 

It is good to be appreciated by man.  It is better to be esteemed by God.  There is a book of remembrance being written.  Soon, each of us will be reviewed by what has been written.  Let us be found to be honorable and faithful in all that we have done.