Where Is the Honor Due Me?

Hello my dear friends,

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and settle in with me for a few minutes. I want us to sit together with a passage that can feel a little sharp at first—but if we listen closely, it sounds less like a scolding and more like a Father’s wounded tenderness. Here is the text:

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the LORD’s table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts. And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the LORD of hosts.”

The temple was standing again. The priests were still wearing the right garments and saying the right words. They still called God Father and Master. And yet the Lord of hosts looks at what they actually place on His table and asks, almost quietly, “Where is my honor?”You can hear the surprise in their reply: “How have we despised your name?” They were not shouting blasphemy. They were simply bringing what cost them least—the blind animal, the lame one, the sick one that no governor would ever accept as a gift. What they would never dare present to an earthly official they assumed the living God would smile over. Little by little the Lord’s table had become, in their hearts, contemptible. Not hated, exactly. Just… not worth the best.

Friend, does that land a little close? Because we still do this, don’t we? We keep the language of sonship and lordship. We still show up. And yet we can slide into offering God the leftover hour, the leftover attention, the leftover honesty, the leftover generosity—the parts of our lives we would never hand to someone whose favor we actually wanted. Weariness does that. So does the quiet suspicion that God will understand, that He is easier to please than the people whose opinions still sting.

The Lord’s question about the governor is almost kind in its sharpness. He is not trying to crush them. He is trying to wake them. If even a human official would refuse such a gift, how can we treat the Holy One as less worthy of honor? Verse 9 then turns the irony all the way around: go ahead, they are told, entreat His favor—but with gifts like these, will He receive you? They wanted grace while withholding honor. They wanted the Father’s face while treating His table as an afterthought.

And here is where the gospel comes near and steadies us. We do not stand before this text empty-handed, hoping to find a better lamb. Jesus is the unblemished Offering. He did not bring the Father a leftover life. He offered Himself wholly—without defect, without calculation, without holding anything back. At the cross the honor due the Father was perfectly given, and the favor we could never earn was freely opened to us. The ruins of our cheap worship do not have the last word. The Son who honored the Father in our place now invites us to the table not as bargainers, but as beloved children.

So the old question still searches us, but it no longer has to terrify us. Where is my honor? is the voice of a Father who has already given His best, now calling us to stop insulting His kindness with what we ourselves would never offer a governor. Honor is not first a feeling. It is the glad, costly decision to bring Him what is first and finest because He has already brought us Himself.

Personal Reflection Questions

• Where in your ordinary week have you been quietly offering God what you would never present to someone whose approval still matters to you?
• When you call Him Father and Lord, what would “honor” actually look like in one small, concrete place—your time, your words, your giving, your attention?
• How does remembering that Jesus offered the unblemished life change the way you hear God’s searching question, “Will he show favor to any of you?”
• Is there a weariness or cynicism that has made the Lord’s table feel small or optional? What would it look like to bring that weariness to Him instead of hiding behind a lesser gift?
• What would it mean this week to treat His presence as worthy of your first and finest, not because you are trying to earn His face, but because His face has already been turned toward you in Christ?

I’m grateful we could sit with these words together. May the Father who asked for honor meet you with the mercy already purchased at the cross, and may your heart grow glad again to bring Him what costs something—because He first gave everything.

Your fellow sheep