FIVE I'S OF DISRESPECT: INSULTING

"Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: 'I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever'. But now the Lord says: 'Far be it from Me ; for those who honor Me I will honor,and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.(1 Samuel 2:29-30)".

Today I welcome you to the grand finale of our series on Disrespect featuring Interrupting, ignoring, intruding and interfering so far. It has been a wonderful training session for me and I am grateful to God for the opportunity to share these insights with you. I will talking lastly on the fifth 'I' of disrespect called insulting. Permit me to use plenty scriptural examples to address this ; in other words be patient to read till the end cos the post might be long.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-3, we see words like slandering, reviling, blaspheming used referring to things that will come in the last days...and of course we are in the last days. These words being referred to are synonymous with abusing, to speak reproachfully or disrespectfully.

Profanity means to be irreverent of God, people and the things of God. You know, you can use a good terminology in a bad way. It's the tone of it, the attitude with which it's spoken that matters.

Words are more than letters. They are simply containers that you put spiritual substance into. When people get angry, they make an effort to debase , make low or tell you how nothing you are, and they put all these things into words.

God put creative powers in His word containers. God has made us speaking spirits and thus we have the liberty to speak whatever we want. We should speak on purpose to empower, to enable, to encourage. But the devil will cause you to fill your words with curses, discouragements,etc.

Don't twist your words and mean the opposite of what you say. It is devilish. Don't be 'damning' anything. We are speakers of life. If it is good,say it is good and vice versa. Don't be deceptive. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Proverbs 12:18 tells us the words of the wise are health but there's one who speaks like the piercing of the sword.

It is not cool to refer to your mum or dad as ' my old lady or man '. That's not Godly and very disrespectful. Or you call a minister of the gospel 'this guy' or something like that. That's very disrespectful. Personally I don't get too close to people cos I don't want to be over familiar with them and then lose value for their words or lose my respect for them especially ministers of the gospel.

It is possible to take a respectful term and use it in a disrespectful way. Don't mock anyone ; say what you mean and mean what you say. Eliminate from your vocabs sarcasm and irony cos thats meaning something else of what you mean and thats the language of the devil ; twisting things.

We will look at two stories in the book of 2 kings. Starting up, 2 Kings 1:8-13 tells of the story Elijah and how 102 servants from the king were burnt down due to disrespect..infact they called Elijah man of God but in a mocking and irreverential way. Does it make any difference your approach to life's circumstances and to people ?  Certainly it does make a lot of difference to the kind of response you want to get cos something different happened to the 3rd set of servant that was sent to Elijah by the king. He approached Elijah respectfully and wasnt burned.

Also  2 Kings 2: 23-24, tells us of another story about Elisha and 42 youths that were eaten up by two female bears because they called the prophet 'bald head'. God says touch not my anointed...God takes these things personal. You might say there are no such things in the New testament or in our present day since nobody gets burnt for disrespect...The truth is it happened to Ananais and Sapphira: these ones died on the spot for lying and coming to our present day now I tell you it is because of God's mercies we are not consumed.

You should cringe when you hear people speak so disrespectfully. Showing respect to God is showing respect to people.

In Summary, God's words are alive ; they are living and it will come alive in you if you open your heart to the word. If you treat God's things and people as valuable and important or less significant then so shall yours be treated. Romans 13:7 tells us to pay everyone what we owe them. If you owe taxes, pay your taxes..if you owe respect, pay it to them.

First day of this series I said respect is earned. Truth is demanding respect from people doesn't work. You don't get respect by demanding it. If you want respect sow respect. Don't demand respect,demonstrate respect.

Respect the place people stand on, else you disrespect the God that created that place and put them there and then God will honor us with His presence.

Welcome to a new week...full of goodies..Have a wonderful Sunday. Keep up being with me through this blog. I appreciate, honor,value and respect YOU big time. Leave your comments and share to your friends. Thanks a million.

Much Love 😀