Our goal on the Sanctification Road should be to grow in godliness. This daily devotional looks at how we can train ourselves to grown in godliness and faith.
Nuggets
- We want to grow in godliness because God and His Word are real.
- Growing in godliness means becoming more virtuous.
- Growing in godliness means we are growing in faith.
- As we grow, we learn the value of godliness and we gain value in God’s eyes.
Devotions in the Review 101: Godliness series
Even though we may feel we have a long way to go on the Sanctification Road, we can take comfort in the fact that we can grow closer to being godly.
Yes, we can grow to be more God-like. Let’s check it out.
Let's Put It into Context
Godliness, equated with the Old Testament term fear of the Lord, is an attitude of reverence that is promoted by walking in His Spirit. The fear of the Lord means awe, reverence and love, not terror.
Beecher extended that definition. He said that godliness means “… having a wise view of all the laws of our being and condition, and living in conformity to them.”
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Godliness Is a Matter of Training
“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness” (I Tim. 4: 7 ESV)
We want to grow in godliness because God and His Word are real.
Nothing in Scriptures is fiction. The multiple authors did not make up some interesting story to manipulate us.
God is real. He created the universe. He created mankind.
All of this was done because God loves us. When we think about I Corinthians 13, we think that is how our marriages should be run.
Have we ever looked at that as that describes Who God is?
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends” (I Cor. 13: 4-8 ESV).
Yep, the only place that breaks down is in verse 5. “… It does not insist on its own way …” (I Cor. 13: 5 ESV).
God can insist that we do things His way. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present.
To read a related devotion, click on the appropriate button below.
But look what it says. We get to “… train yourself for godliness” (I Tim. 4: 7 ESV).
Yes, we can change. Yes, it is going to take work.
Also, it will be a process. Essex Congregational Remembrancer wrote, “This duty includes a strict and impartial inquiry into our own hearts, as to what may be therein likely to prevent our advancement in godliness.”
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When we train, that means we have to be committed to the process. We can’t just work on obtaining God’s character once a week.
It has to become a habit. It has to be engrained in us.
That also means that we have to look deep inside us. We aren’t talking about a surface change. We are taking about one at the heart level.
This is also where the watching comes into play. Watchfulness is a continual conscious examination of ourselves and all events so that we may follow God in all things.
Glossary
But we have to go through this training. This is the only way we become godly.
Growing in Godliness
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (I Pet. 1: 5-7 CSB)
Growing in godliness means becoming more virtuous.
Ooo, baby. Do these verses sound familiar?
These are the verses that we used when we talked about the virtues that disciples should possess. We said it was a continuum that culminated in godliness, kindness, and love.
Devotions in the Christian Virtues series
These verses are also truly appropriate. They show that we do grow our character.
We said in Faith as a Virtue that these were not all the virtues on the sit that I found. Sometime this year, we will look at some more of them.
God will show us where we need to grow to be like Him. However, He wants us to make sure we are always looking for those growth areas.
So, how do we get to godliness? Perfection, right?
Well, no. The perfected state indicates the combination of the graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness. It means we have become as Jesus is. — holy, sanctified, and righteous. That will only happen in Heaven.
Glossary
Emmons said we need to be intentional. Do we see a pattern here?
- Word for 2019: Intentional
- Word for 2020: Self-discipline
- Word for 2021: Godliness
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It is more than just striving for godliness, though. We have to get it to heart level. We have to make sure our work in finding out what godliness is makes us more like God. We can’t just have head knowledge.
Gaining the character of God begins with our choice. Yeah, it is going to take work. But if we are diligent, our character does become like His.
But it has to be more than a new years’ resolution that we forget before we get out of January. It can’t be something we give up in July because it takes so much work. It isn’t one that we will be able to accomplish by December so we will never have to work at it again.
This is going to be a life-long process. Yeah, we are talking sanctification here.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness. Regeneration is the change in us that God brings about when we go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
Glossary
Champney gave us a real big caution. We can’t let the evaluation process lead to pride or conceit. Instead, the process needs to humble us.
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Growing in Faith
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith” (I Jn. 5: 4 ESV)
Growing in godliness means we are growing in faith.
If we really get down to the meat and potatoes of it, when we are growing in godliness, we are really growing in faith. We are strengthening our belief in God.
Blencowe put it this way. He wrote godliness is “… a real belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; our Maker, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. It is believing in Him, as He is made known to us in the Bible, in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
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Isn’t that what it is all about? It isn’t that we do the does and don’t do the don’ts. It is our belief in what God has done for us.
Yes, obedience to God’s laws and commandments is a huge way that we show that belief. Obedience alone is not going to get our ticket to Heaven punched.
Instead, we have to have faith. We have to be growing in that faith.
What Do We Gain as We Grow?
As we grow in godliness, we gain many valuable things and gain in value in God’s eyes.
We gain temporal blessings when we grow in godliness. We know that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas. 1: 17 ESV).
We gain a good reputation. Griffith was correct when he wrote that “the discipline of godliness does make a man better inwardly.”
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But it also manifests itself into what what the world sees. Our inward godliness informs our actions.
We’ve talked about how godliness is the parent of contentment. That is because we gain peace as we are living as a God wants us to live. This comes because we start believing that we have been forgiven.
Making the Connections
Stevens had a great take on our pursuit of godliness. He wrote, “No aim can so call out all the powers of the human mind, and soul, as the aim after God-likeness. For what is godliness? Is it not God-likeness? a seeking to be like God? Yet the question at once arises, How can man be like God? God is infinite, man is finite. Yet with all this disparity, the Bible exhorts us to set the Lord always before us, and to grow up into His likeness.”
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That’s right. How are we going to accomplish the impossible?
Let’s face it. To most of us, it seems like becoming godly isn’t going to happen.
But Scriptures say, “… With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19: 26 ESV).
No, we will never be creators, all-knowing and all-seeing.
But we can imitate God’s moral characteristics. That means we can be holy.
How Do We Apply This?
First off, we have to be children of God’s to have a shot at being godly. Boston wrote, “That professor or minister that is not godly can never exercise himself to godliness. It is impossible to act without a principle of acting, and exercise doth naturally require a power of it. He can never exercise himself to running, that wants feet to run with; or to wrestling, who wants arms; nor the ungodly exercise themselves to godliness; on the contrary, ‘an heart they have exercised with covetous practices.’” Just being a good person will never make us godly.
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To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Let’s look at it this way. One of the files in my drafts folder for this year is on the topic of sin being a disease.
We need a healthy, viable relationship with God.
The Essex Congregational Remembrancer gave us some really good advice. They wrote, “It is of importance to consider that unless we exercise ourselves unto godliness, so far from making further advances in the Divine life, we shall go backward, not forward.”
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We have to grow in our relationships with God. We’ve got to become more like Him.
Yes, there are days we will go backwards. We always have to try to move forward.
Gracious Heavenly Father. It brings us great joy to think that we can grow to be like You. Yes, we know from the world’s viewpoint we have a long way to go. You, however, do not look at what we do or do not do. You look at our hearts — our love for You. Help us to grow our faith in You. Amen.
What do you think?
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