Psalm 15:4 says that those who may fellowship with God will despise the reprobate, “but honors those who fear the LORD.” There are “two sides” to this “coin”: we are indeed to despise those who live perverse lifestyles, which we explored in the devotion on this Psalm yesterday. But the positive side of this is that we should HONOR those who fear God.

The word “honor” comes from the Hebrew word “kabod”, which means “weighty.” It means that we are to “give weight”, or “honor” to the godly among us.

Often we focus on the negative commands of scripture, but neglect to stress its positive aspects. Indeed, we are NOT to admire the reprobate in our society. But are we practicing the positive element of this verse? Are we actively honoring those who fear God?

Must the consistent servants in your church do their work entirely by faith, serving without appreciation or notice, because they are never honored — or do you purposefully recognize them? What about your faithful employees? Or those who serve the cause of righteousness in pregnancy resource centers or disaster relief or politics or as public servants?

Many times Christians are branded as “negative Nellies” — and often we probably deserve that reputation! Psalm 15:4 does command us to despise the reprobate, which is undoubtedly going to come across as “negative”. But it also commands us to take some positive action, and honor faithful servants of God. Many of us would have to admit we need to spend some more time working on this “other side of the coin”!