The goal of godliness is to change our character to be like God’s. This daily devotional reviews what God’s character is and how our godliness should be exhibited in our inward and outward godliness.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
With the newsletters, we’ve been organizing the nuggets by the three prongs of godliness. We’ve already looked at Our Relationship with God.
We’re ready to move one to the second side, Obeying God’s Laws and Commandments. These laws are held in the Scriptures.
The purpose of the laws is to change our character to that of God’s. But there are some things we need to remember off the top.
- The Bible will never be a dead book in a library cemetery. It will be a living, breathing document that prophecies the future — until that prophecy is fulfilled (What Affections Are We Talking About?).
- There are so many times in life where we beg God for a redo. We messed up, and we want a second, third, fourth chance with God. God gives us that chance. Every single moment of our lives can be a redo. We are given the opportunity. We just have to grab it and do it right (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- The creation of us was for God’s glory and honor, not our prosperity (More Benefits of Setting Our Affections on Things Above).
- Godliness, along with contentment, comes from being obedient to God’s laws and commandments because the laws and commandments show us God’s character (Godliness: The Parent of Contentment).
What Is Wrong?
- Becoming godly takes us back to the way we were originally created. It means we possess spiritual life, not spiritual death (Starting Anew: Redo for Godliness).
- Because Adam and Eve chose to sin, mankind has a sinful nature (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 1)).
- Our character changed after the original sin, not our nature. We still have a soul, even if it is tarnished by sin. If our soul was eliminated, our nature would have changed (In Whose Image Are We Made: God’s or Adam’s?).
- The faith and the godliness wouldn’t have been where it should have been in Adam and Eve. That caused them to bite when Satan pushed (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 2)).
- Since Adam and Eve became unclean when they sinned, that nature was passed along to their children upon their birth (In Whose Image Are We Made: God’s or Adam’s?).
- Adam and Eve’s desire for wisdom was the affection they put over things above and created our sinful nature. That began our habit of putting earthly things above heavenly things (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 2)).
- Adam and Eve probably were very committed to God right after they were created. We don’t know if Satan had tried to convince Eve — or even Adam — before the Genesis 3 incident (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 3)).
- Reclaiming our status of being made in God’s image is easy. We have to ABCD (In Whose Image Are We Made: God’s or Adam’s?).
- We think we understand things, increasing our pride. This causes us to deny God’s power and His control over us (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 1)).
- Our wills are corrupted when they lead us to put this world and it’s offerings above God and His provision for us. This again was caused by the original sin but exasperated by our continued choice of this world over God (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 2)).
- Part of the problem is we want to be our own master. That was what the original sin was all about, isn’t it? Adam and Eve wanted to be able to choose what they could and could not do. They also wanted the wisdom they thought this fruit could give them (Surrendering Our Will to God).
- Returning to God broken is more of a concept of our knowing just how much we need God in our lives. We are broken in terms of struggling against and resisting Him (The Silence of Humble of Confession).
- God did not create us to be sinners. When He created us, we were made in His image. Mankind was the one who let sin into the world. We disobeyed God and brought the punishment on ourselves (More Benefits of Setting Our Affections on Things Above).
God’s Character
- The laws and commandments are to show us God’s character. God character is love (I Jn. 4: 8), Godliness is to produce a moral likeness to God. To be like God, we have to the character of love, which is shown through loving our neighbors (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
- We tend to think of perfection as doing all the do’s and not doing all the don’ts. That isn’t going to happen — even after we become disciples. Perfection is about being. It is about obtaining the character of God. No, that doesn’t give us license to go out and sin. It gives us the assurance that God will continue to forgive us when we ask as we work through our salvation on the Sanctification Road (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- Being moral isn’t about our actions based on a certain standard. Instead, it is about our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Our character is to flow from our relationship with God. We aren’t operating under the worldview definition of moral. Instead, we are focusing on the new moral obligation that God expects from us (The Morality of Honesty).
- God is less interested in what we do than who we are. We can’t earn our way to salvation. It is based on changing ourselves to be more like him — changing who we are (The Commandment of Morality).
- We need to watch every aspect of our lives to ensure we are in God’s Will (The Morality of Honesty).
- If our temperamental makeup is to reflect God, it should not be a cruel disposition or even a weak one. We should reflect His love and concern for the spiritual condition of others (The Morality of Being Lovely).
- If we think that the moral laws are the least of His commandments, we have to realize God does not. The greatest commandments have no more authority than the least commandments. The least commandments offend God just as much as the greatest commandments (The Commandment of Morality).
- God isn’t a dictator. He doesn’t make decrees and expect us to blindly follow them. Instead, God wants us to make conscious, informed decisions as to whether or not we are going to ABCD. Yes, we have an option to reject the Plan of Salvation. In order to make that informed decision, we have to actively listen to God. We have to let Him lead (Mastering Silence of the Tongue).
- People who give lip service devotion will suffer consequences. I think we do have trouble understanding God’s character because we evaluate it based on our understanding — not worldview understanding, but worldly understanding. We know what we think it should be (Why Do We Suffer Consequences When Setting Our Affections Below?).
Obstacles to Godliness
- Sometimes, we can do okay with guarding our speech. Sometimes, we can’t. That is especially true with our self-talk (The Morality of Peace).
- We can’t have a double-mind. We can’t say we are a disciple but then choose to keep committing sins. That means we are trying to serve God and Satan (How Do We Cleanse and Purify to Submit to God?).
- We are not submitting to God when we focus on the joy of this world (How Do We Cleanse and Purify to Submit to God?).
- What makes it a challenge Satan can use against us is when we expect the “… all things God works for the good of those who love him …” (Rom. 8: 28 NIV) to only be good things. Couple that with “… he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able …” (I Cor. 10: 13 CSB), we expect smooth sailing to be the norm. But are we really submitting to God’s Will if it isn’t challenging us with something that isn’t our will? (How Are We to Submit to God?).
- Satan doesn’t want us to prioritize God into the first position. That is where Satan wants to be. He will use anything he can to suffocate God’s Word (Prioritizing Things Above).
- Self-sufficiency is not setting our affections on things above. It is keeping our eyes firmly on us (Final Thoughts on Setting Our Affections on Things Above).
- The worldview tries to insinuate that something they believe is right is because many people believe that. That is not true. God gives us laws and commandments to show us what is right and what is wrong. They stress that instead of following God, we should not do anything that would offend someone else (Transformed to Unconformity).
- If we lower God’s standards to be more like the world, we are doing a disservice to non-believers. God will judge them on His standards, not the world’s or some combination thereof (Transformed to Unconformity).
- Worldview people focus on the negative — the submission, the don’ts (Transformed to Unconformity).
- If God hasn’t expressly forbidden something, we should just keep our beliefs to ourselves on the indifferent items (Living in Faith and Love).
Inward and Outward Godliness
- Our pursuit of godliness shouldn’t exclusively have an external stimulus. The internal stimulus must constitute a reverence for God’s majesty, a recognition of His glory, and love, gratitude, and respect (The Form of Godliness).
- The inward expression of godliness has to bubble out to be an outward expression of godliness (The Form of Godliness).
- There are some that are pursuing godliness for some external gain. They may have an outward appearance of being righteous. But inwardly, they have not submitted to the Sovereign God. Not. Going. To. Fly (The Form of Godliness).
- Since godliness has both an inward and outward expression, it cannot be an out without the in. We cannot believe being a good person will gain admission to Heaven. A person who has not changed to possess the nature of God and follow the commands of God is not godly (The Form of Godliness).
- Our conscience is the part of our inner nature that makes us us and governs our actions by pointing us to what is right and giving us pain or pleasure when we choose wrong (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 2)).
- Our consciences grow as we experience situations in which we must decide what is right and what is wrong. We are regenerated and sanctified when we utilize those experiences to grow our character to be like God’s (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 2)).
- Inner peace stems from our avoidance of sin, even secret sins (The Morality of Peace).
- We have to live godly lives no matter with whom we come into contact. We can’t act one way with believers and another way with non-believers. We have to be consistent because we may be witnessing without knowing it (The Morality of Honesty).
- Disciples are told to stand firm in God’s truth and righteousness. It doesn’t say fight. But it also doesn’t say leave the battlefield. Our fight is to stand and let God do the fighting (The Act of Standing Morally).
- We can handle everything thrown our way because God is limiting Satan. It will take courage on our part. We can’t tuck tail and run away. We have to remember that God is always with us. We can’t break. We can’t give in to the temptation. We have to keep choosing to follow God’s laws and commandments (The Act of Standing Morally).
- God wants us to live our lives obeying Him and following His lead (The Morality of Being Lovely).
- Inner beauty is tied up with our spiritual graces/enhanced morals. Those are leading us to be godly — holy and righteous. This inner beauty is much more important to God than outward beauty (Honoring God with Our Lives).
- Moral superiority is more powerful than physical superiority (Peace and Safety Are the Rewards of Morality).
Godliness and Religion
- Performing religious ceremonies – even attending religious services — is not the end all and be all. We have to be performing and attending for the right reason — to grow closer to God (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
- The last thing God wants us to do is to go through the motions of putting on church. He wants us there to worship Him (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
- We can worship God and appear to be godly but not be. We cannot be godly if we do not worship God (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
- Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees that we can’t just make it a surface religion. Our faith has to lead to a relationship with God. A relationship with God has to lead to a change in our character (How Do We Cleanse and Purify to Submit to God?).
- The Jews thought that, since they were God’s people, they could just sit back and let God do for them. It doesn’t work that way. We need to show remorse for disobeying God. We need to want and try to follow His laws and commandments. Repentance is our conscious decision to try to do all of that (What Was John the Baptist’s Message?).
- Jesus didn’t want them to be all about the ritual. He wanted them — and us to be about the relationship (Don’t Slander Our Good).
- We don’t want to get bogged down in the observance. We need to focus on the praise and worship (Don’t Slander Our Good).
- Sometimes, we use the outward ceremony to mask the inward desolate condition of our hearts. We don’t realize God has 20-20 vision in our hearts (The State of the Kingdom of God).
The Blessings of Godliness
- We are blessed when we give generously with the right motivation (God’s Blessings for Merciful Disciples of Christ).
- We are blessed for our work for God when it stems from our relationship with Him, when we labor to expand His kingdom, and when we truly love those who are the object of our labors. When we do our best, we receive the best (God’s Blessings for Merciful Disciples of Christ).
Father God. We want to have Your character. Help us to grow in Your image and in our relationship with You. Amen.
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