Honour & Shame and the FACE of God

THE greatest honour and glory of our life is in CHRIST alone. Shame abounds when we miss HIS GLORY within.

We all know what shame feels like — being paraded in public for stealing or fraud, cursed and cut off by your family, sitting alone because no one even wants your name mentioned. And we know what honour feels like — when respected leaders of the community call you forward, when your name is spoken with blessing, when the church and neighbours celebrate your life and fill the hall at your funeral. In the church, among family and friends, we taste honour through the esteem earned by our support, generosity, wise counsel, care, and the quiet sacrifices we make for others. But we also know the sting of shame when we cannot afford to give, to help, or to live up to those expectations — when we feel we have nothing to offer and turn our face away in silence.

In contemporary society, few experiences evoke deeper shame than public exposure and condemnation, particularly when tied to moral or social failure. Consider, for instance, the profound humiliation of a teenage girl from a prominent Christian home who falls pregnant before marriage, thereby violating both familial expectations and religious ideals of purity. Likewise, the private shame of a teenager caught sexting — their intimate images leaked and circulated — becomes magnified by relentless online scrutiny. Perhaps most emblematic of our age, however, is the collective shaming inflicted through so-called ‘cancel culture,’ where false accusations, populist propaganda, and the relentless activism of social media warriors can destroy reputations overnight. In each case, the individual is stripped of dignity, subjected to a digital public square of scorn, and rendered vulnerable before the judgment of both their immediate community and the faceless masses of online spectators.

Many individuals carry deep, often unspoken feelings of shame — a secret burden that shapes their sense of self and their engagement with the world. Such shame may stem from struggles with being overweight and the accompanying sense of hopeless despair, feeling powerless to change. Others may experience intense humiliation following a business failure, foreclosure, insolvency, or bankruptcy, which not only undermines their financial stability but also strikes at their sense of competence, respectability, and worth.

The Value of Honour

People will endure almost anything for honour — they will fight wars, risk their lives, go into crushing debt to throw a lavish wedding or funeral, spend years mastering a craft to earn respect, sacrifice their comfort to serve their community, keep silent to protect family dignity, or even die a martyr’s death rather than suffer public shame. They will stand up to oppressors, defy governments, and leave everything behind to protect their good name. Men and women alike will climb mountains, cross deserts, and persevere through humiliation, rejection, and pain if it means restoring or increasing their honour in the eyes of others or before God. Like a thirsty man chasing water, humanity craves honour — because it feels like life itself: to be seen, respected, and remembered rightly.

We fear shame and losing face with those we love and respect so deeply that it can govern our thoughts, choices, and even silence our convictions. We avoid confessing sins or admitting mistakes because we dread their disappointed gaze; we hide weaknesses, cover failures, and wear masks to preserve their approval. We overwork, overpromise, and overextend ourselves just to keep our honour intact, terrified they might see us as incompetent, weak, or disloyal. The thought of being exposed — of standing alone, judged, rejected, whispered about — feels worse than death itself, because shame strips us not only of dignity but of belonging. Like Adam and Eve hiding among the trees, we would rather disappear into the shadows than let those closest see the naked truth of who we are.

The Face of Honour of Shame

Honour and shame are written most clearly on the human face — our most expressive and revealing canvas.

To live with honour is to be met by the gaze of delight and esteem: a face that turns toward you with warmth, acceptance, and pride.

Psychologists tell us that from infancy, we are mirroring beings — we learn who we are by watching the faces of those around us. A baby searches a mother’s eyes for signs of approval or rejection, and this need never truly leaves us. To see another’s eyes light up in response to us — their smile widening, their brow softening, their whole face saying “you matter, you belong, you are loved” — is the most profound affirmation of our worth.

Conversely, shame is felt as the face turned away, or worse, turned toward us in disgust, disappointment, or disapproval. The downturned mouth, the narrowed eyes, the dismissive or hidden glance cut us to the core. Even when unspoken, the subtle signals of disdain or rejection — a face that refuses to look at us or sees through us — carry tremendous emotional weight. We become anxious, self-conscious, even defensive, as we feel exposed, unworthy, or excluded.

Screens and Superficial Faces

Among "Gen Z", we hardly meet face to face— the generation coming of age in the era of smartphones, social media, and globalisation — the ancient forces of honour and shame are alive and powerful, though expressed in new and often more volatile forms. For previous generations, honour was typically earned through loyalty, sacrifice, and conformity to one’s family or community norms, while shame came from violating those expectations. For Gen Z, however, the arena has shifted from village and family to the vast, digital stage of the internet, a virtual and deceptive form of relational connection.

Today, honour among Gen Z is often tied to visibility, influence, and digital "likes". To be honoured means being seen, celebrated, and followed — admired for one’s style, opinions, activism, creativity, or belonging to the right causes. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have become the places where status is gained and maintained, making the pursuit of honour highly performative and exhausting. People curate an identity — a kind of personal brand — designed to attract validation from peers and strangers alike.

Shame, thus, has become more public, immediate, and brutal. Where past shame might have been private or limited to a close circle, Gen Z lives under the gaze of the crowd. A mistake, an unpopular opinion, or even an ill-timed post can lead to ridicule, “cancellation,” and widespread rejection. This culture of shame breeds anxiety and perfectionism, as young people feel they must constantly perform perfection or risk disgrace.

Created to Desire Glory and Honour

Humans were created in God’s image and crowned with royal honour to serve as His representatives on earth. When humanity fell into sin, we didn’t just lose our innocence, we also lost that royal honour and glory. Many people think that our desire for honour is just prideful and wrong, but in the light of divine creation this isn’t true. God Himself planted the longing for honour in our hearts as part of how He made us. This hunger for honour is not a bad thing; it’s good and right.

The gospel includes the promise that in Christ, humanity is restored and glorified again, regaining the honour we were always meant to carry.

Shame and honor drive much of human life — we long to be respected, and we fear being disgraced.

Shame and honor drive much of human life — we long to be respected, and we fear being disgraced.

Three features mark humans as creatures of glory: We perceive glory, we celebrate glory together, and we desire glory. Not only do humans recognize splendor, excellence, and beauty, but we also instinctively know that we must point out that beauty to others. Anything truly worthy is also praiseworthy. That is, we don’t just behold what is beautiful or exceptional. We call for the attention of others to see and celebrate it together. There is something deeply satisfying about celebrating, with others, someone or something of worth. Perhaps the only thing we find even more satisfying is to be the object of praise and celebration. We are created with an intrinsic yearning, an essential desiring, to be named, to be recognized, to be loved, to be honoured and revered.

The root source of the problem since the fall of man is that we seek to restore our honour without God.

The original lure in Genesis 3:6 — “good for food… pleasant to the eyes… desirable to make one wise” — is far more than a snack attack or aesthetic curiosity. It’s a deeply human attempt to grasp at honour without God. Look at it: the serpent whispers a promise of elevation, of being “like God,” knowing good and evil. The woman sees the fruit not just as sustenance, but as status, a way to become something more, apart from and even above the boundaries of her creaturehood. It sparkled as the shortcut to wisdom, glory, and significance — but on her own terms.

That ancient appetite still lives in us. We long to be seen as competent, strong, admired — to be “wise” in the eyes of others — but without surrendering to the God who defines true honour. Like a man building a tower to heaven, she reached to possess what could only ever be received. It was the temptation to bypass trust, bypass obedience, bypass humility — and instead to snatch at an identity and significance that could never truly be hers without God’s blessing.

In a tragic irony, what she hoped would clothe her in wisdom and glory left her naked and ashamed. This is the pattern of all our false quests for honour: climbing a ladder that ends in a fall. We reach for the crown, but without the cross, and find instead a crushing weight we cannot bear.

The lesson here is sobering and poetic:

There is no honour apart from the Giver of honour, no wisdom that doesn’t begin in the fear of the Lord, no elevation that doesn’t come by first bowing low.

The original sin wasn’t just disobedience — it was the desire to be glorious without God’s glory, wise without His Word, and honoured without His presence. And ever since, we’ve been hiding in the trees, covering ourselves with fig leaves of achievement, status, and pretense — still trying to look good without returning to Him who alone clothes us with dignity.

Excerpt from: "Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry" by William Carey Publishing.  Read this book on Everand: https://www.everand.com/book/547780186 

Testing Your Sacrificial-Type

The big question for us today is: Whose opinion really matters? When God looks at your face — like He looked at Cain and Abel — what does He see? Does He honour you, or does He shame your falsehood?

And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. (Gen 4:4-5) 

Respect H8159. שָׁעָה šā‘āh, שָׁתַע šāṯa‘:
A verb meaning to look with favour or in dismay. It means to look on something with approval, to accept it (Gen. 4:4, 5); or to look on some burdensome thing or situation in trepidation, dismay (Ex. 5:9).

The verb here suggests that God scrutinized the deepest motives and sincerity behind the sacrifice. He did not merely see the outward act. Still, He looked into their faces, perceiving either loving elation, a heart pursuing the ultimate offering out of awe and devotion, or, as in Cain’s case, self-righteous pride and half-hearted insolence. Cain’s gaze was already fixed on the glorification of self — his own efforts, and splendour. This becomes clearer when we see that he named the first city after his son, Enoch, to immortalize his own line: “And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch” (Genesis 4:17). Here already are the first fruits of the "Babylon’s spirit" — that ancient cry of defiance: ‘Let us make a name for ourselves’ (Genesis 11:4).

Cain sought honour among men, Abel sought honour from God alone.

“Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” (Genesis 4:6–8)

God’s question to Cain — “Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” pierces to the heart of the honour-and-shame theological worldview. God invites Cain to seek the true glory that comes from Him, which always flows from obedience, self-denial, and sacrificial love for others. Yet Cain’s fallen face reveals a heart bent inward, craving self-made honor, resentful of God’s approval of his brother’s offering.

When we pursue God’s honor, we willingly embrace a life of surrender and costly sacrifice, like Jesus, who bore our guilt and shame, carrying the cross not for His own glory but for the good of others.

Cain, however, embodies the opposite spirit: when asked to care for his brother, he deflects with disdain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” — and murders him instead. This psychological root of competition, envy, wounded pride, and the refusal to let God lift our face becomes the seed of violence. Cain’s lineage culminates in Nimrod, a mighty hunter of men, who justified domination and violence in pursuit of his own fame and honor — the spirit of Babylon that says: “Let us make a name for ourselves.” Here we see the tragedy of dictators and narcissistic leaders through history — those who, like Cain and Nimrod, sought to elevate themselves at the expense of others, wielding power without conscience.

The way of Christ shows us the better path: honour through obedience and humility, greatness through service, and glory through the laying down of our lives for the good of others and the pleasure of God’s face.

Jesus became the highest name of all names because of His obedience even unto death.

🔍  Jordan Peterson on Cain & Abel

1. Archetypal Rivalry & Human Suffering

Peterson reads Cain and Abel as the first archetypal public psychological confrontation: self-consciousness brings suffering, and we respond in one of two ways: by humble, obedient striving or by bitter envy and entitlement.  

2. Sacrifice as Meaningful Effort

He explains that ritual sacrifice in ancient cultures symbolized the idea of deferred gratification. Making real sacrifices today (surrendering something of value) readies you for tomorrow’s challenges.

Abel offered his best—his firstborn flock—while Cain gave a more pragmatic but less wholehearted gift. Abel’s sacrifice reflected genuine, authentic loyalty and commitment, while Cain’s did not.

3. Withdrawal From the Infinite

Peterson argues Abel trusted the vast, transcendent order (“the infinite”) and stepped forward willingly into sacrifice. Cain recoiled from that vulnerability and instead tried to game and manipulate the system, thinking he could outfox divine order with minimal effort. His resentment grew as God showed the flaw in his strategy.  

4. Envy, Rage, Murder

When God rejected Cain’s offering, resentment exploded into murderous rage. Peterson emphasizes that Cain didn’t destroy only his brother—he attempted to destroy the Creator of The Universe’s justice. This gave birth to a lineage marked by violence and domination.  

5. Political and Psychological Resonance

Peterson connects Cain’s story to modern ideological tyrants—those who reject transcendent authority and demand self-made glory. He warns that the refusal to queue humbly for God’s favour, replaced by rage at injustice, is the root of totalitarianism. He even draws parallels to Marx, calling him metaphorically a “Cain.”  

• Abel: Steps forward humbly, gives sacrificially, bears the tension of sacrifice—and trusts in unseen Divine order.
• Cain: Refuses genuine sacrifice, schemes for self, plots bitterness when the world doesn’t yield to his shortcuts—murder is the ideal.

For Peterson, the lesson is stark: Meaning arises only through authentic sacrifice and humble serving. Attempts to short-change moral effort lead instead to bitterness, denial of shared responsibility, and even systemic evil.

Let us look even deeper at how this same spirit can dwell among the religious:

• It was not the pagans, nor the openly immoral, who demanded the death of Jesus — but the religious elite themselves.
• The self-righteous establishment of first-century Judaism, particularly the rigid and prideful sects, was so threatened by His purity, His truth, and His challenge to their false honour that they conspired to crucify Him. In their envy and self-justifying piety, they delivered the most brutal death to the most innocent Man — the Son of God.

Religious pride, cloaked in holiness yet rooted in Cain’s spirit, can become blind to justice and mercy, murdering what it cannot control or comprehend.

Jesus Shames Hypocrisy and Pride

When Jesus walked among the people, He reserved His sharpest words for religious hypocrisy:

• He publicly exposed the Pharisees for praying to impress others, giving to be seen, fasting to gain the honor of men (Luke 18:9–14).
• He called Herod a fox — sly, self-serving, and full of lies for he was the ultimate glory seeker of the Roman Authorities and his own Jewish Countrymen. (Luke 13:32).

Why? Because these people wore beautiful faces outside but harbored falsehood inside.

God sees the face behind the face.

Jesus Honours Humility, Honesty, and Faith.

Jesus delighted to honour those who came with no titles, no pride — only pure hearts:

• The widow who gave her last coin was praised above the rich who gave from surplus (Mark 12:43–44).
• The Roman centurion, a foreigner, astonished Jesus with his faith — and Jesus said: “I have not found such faith even in Israel” (Luke 7:9).
• The Syrophoenician woman’s bold faith and humility won her healing and honor from Jesus (Mark 7:24–30).

The faces Jesus smiles upon are those turned toward Him in sincerity and trust, even through tears.

Beholding His Face Right Now

Jesus began His earthly ministry with a bold proclamation: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17) — as though God Himself were extending His hand toward us, inviting us into His embrace, and leaning His radiant face closer to humankind. In Christ, heaven stooped down, offering both His healing touch and His approving smile to a world weary and longing for His presence.

Jesus shows us the truest and best way to live: like Abel, to seek first the honor and glory of God’s acceptance (Matthew 6:33). To pursue His approval above all is the antidote to the corrosive pride of self-glorification — that stubborn ambition to perfect ourselves and improve the world apart from Him.

True greatness begins with humble surrender, aiming not to “make a name for ourselves,” but to magnify His name in everything we do.

"the joy of the Lord is your strength."
Neh. 8:10

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.” 
Num. 6:24–26 

“May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.”
Ps 67:1–2

“Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face
who exult in your name all the day
and in your righteousness are exalted.”
Ps 89:15

“They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” Rev. 22:4–5

All honour is only found IN Christ, and obeying and living His life!
All shame abounds in missing HIS LIFE!

We are simply the most beautiful people when we are most Christlike!!

We all know this statement is true, but the consequential question remains: How do we become Christlike?

Total Surrender to His Righteousness

Every time we act without prayer, it betrays our quiet pursuit of glory by means of our own efforts and striving. It is evidence that we still believe we can move the world by the strength of our own hands, rather than by the breath of His Spirit. Jesus — the only truly righteous one — did nothing unless He first saw, heard, or received it from the Father. He refused to take even a step outside of that divine fellowship. This is not just a model; it is the only way, the narrow path of the righteous: to live and move and have our being entirely in Him, and not in the anxious toil of self-made glory. Anything less is but fig leaves — busy work that covers our fear but never clothes us in His honor.

Therefore, Jesus proclaimed with piercing clarity: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). For the greatest of all sins is self-righteousness — the arrogant presumption that we can clothe ourselves in glory apart from Him. It distorts, even desecrates, the image of God within us, replacing His beauty with the brittle mask of our own efforts.

Yet to all who received Him, He gave the right to become children of God — not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God Himself (John 1:12–13). For this reason, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).

True righteousness is not something we achieve but something we receive — a gift of grace, purchased by the One who became our sin so we could bear His glory. This is why the fruit of the Spirit is called "fruit", not "works" (Gal 5:21-22).

The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of righteousness we carry, as new creatures in Christ.

The Sacrifice is YOU

This is why Abraham had to offer up his son — the very son through whom his name and legacy would live on, the promise of being remembered. In surrendering Isaac, Abraham laid down the very thing that could have become his pride, and God, seeing a heart like that of Abel, provided a ram in his place. Ultimately, we too must die to self:

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Matt. 16:24).

Continually allowing Him to crucify our ego (Gal. 2:20) and embracing obscurity until He, in His time, chooses to glorify us. This is why Jesus Himself waited thirty quiet years before stepping into His public mission, saying even to His mother, “Woman, it is not yet my time” — no grasping for self-glory, no impatient striving.

Jesus waited for the Father alone to lift Him up and honour Him. So too must we learn to wait, only dutifully obey and become content with hiddenness, until His appointed time.

Sing this simple song continually in your spirit as a prayer focus:

As I behold Your Face
I am transformed and changed 
From Glory to glory x2 
I am changed 

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor 3:18)

Oh, what precious joy it is to be glorified by God alone!