You are honoured in my sight

As I was reading this passage again on Friday something struck me as peculiar.
Vs 4 “you are precious and honoured in my sight, and I love you.”

It struck me that God is saying this to his people Israel who have failed him over and over again. How can he say this to them… or to us?
You are precious – extremely valuable to me…and honoured ? Held in high esteem? Really?

I kept asking the Lord – what does this mean? And I felt him say..”This is not about behaviour or performance. That has all been dealt with in Jesus. It is about what you carry.”

Every human being has been created in the image of God. Yes, it was broken and marred. But he still honours what he has put within us as his creation. CS Lewis famously said: “Every time you meet another human being you should imagine a large angel walking in front of them calling out “Make way for the image of God!” An astounding picture….

He honours his own image in us.
He honours what we carry of his work of grace in us and his new life in us.
He honours the potential he gave us to bring life and beauty and order and joy to others.
He honours our deep heart intentions and longings, however feeble our attempts are.
He honours the fact we hang on in dark and difficult times…
He honours our care and love for others.

“You are precious and honoured in my sight… and I love you..”

A few weeks ago I struggled to make a phone call to see someone in Wellington.
I didn’t know them but I needed to make a connection with them. I kept putting it off again and again.
I asked myself why? And then realized I was afraid – afraid of messing this up… afraid of not explaining myself properly, not being received and listened to and understood.
This was an old wound reverberating, from old words of dishonour and ridicule in early years.
Many of us… probably all of us need to hear these wonderful words to us.

“YOU ARE PRECIOUS… AND HONOURED IN MY SIGHT, and I love you.’

As I pondered these words again yesterday – I realized that the Father says this to Jesus ‘You are precious and honoured and I love you…. And Jesus says it to the Father…’Father, You are precious to me and I honour you and I love you..” And then they both say to the Spirit… Tell them, tell them… This is how we feel about them too. Tell them!”
For this is the wonderful work of the Spirit – to convey to us what he hears in the courts of heaven… Being HIS means we are swept up into this relationship of love and honour and respect and incredible value – and this is the basis of our joy in the Lord.

What would change in our sense of who we are – in our ability to step out with courage, to walk closely with the Lord into new things - if we really, really heard the Spirit say to us “You are honoured by the Father… You are honoured by the Lord Jesus… They delight over you!”
Even the Spirit honours us by coming to live in us.