Blog

• Godliness means not only the temperamental makeup that reflect the moral virtues to our lives, but it is also the persistent application where we move godliness from the internal to the external (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
• We are commanded to become godly. True godliness can only come from an inward relationship with Him bubbling out to an external expression (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?; The Form of Godliness).
• God is going to help us in our quest to getting back to our perfected state (In Whose Image Are We Made: God’s or Adam’s?).
• Godliness is all about growth. It is about changing our characters so that we are more like God (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
• Godliness is not only thinking like God but also acting like God. It has to be every aspect of our lives and beings (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
• God is calling us to change. He isn’t in the business of fire insurance. God doesn’t want us to confess Him as Sovereign God and not gain His character. That isn’t submitting. God wants us to cut out the sin in our lives. We can’t hold on to our sinful ways and think God will give us salvation (How Do We Cleanse and Purify to Submit to God?)
• God can insist that we do things His way. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present (Growing in Godliness).
• Having faith as the foundation of all the other virtues kick them up to God level. They lead to godliness (What Are the Causes and Effects of Evil? (Part 1)).
• God wants us to completely submit to Him. That means all of the virtues that we possess must be up to His level (Transformed by Persistence).
• We have to willingly submit to God because Jesus died for our sins. This is going to be a daily submission (The Law of Submission).
• Knowing God is more than just thinking there is some Power Who created this universe (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• We have to have spiritual knowledge of God (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• As we navigate the Sanctification Road, God will reveal Himself to us more fully. We will truly know Him as He is (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• We can’t begin to really know God until we have repented. It is through this repentance that we gain access to God. We can’t really know God until we can approach Him (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• We are to understand; but knowing God does not mean we will be able to understand everything (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• We are to understand up to a point. However, we don’t have to use our intelligence to figure everything out. There are things we will just have to accept in our heart through faith (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• We have to understand enough in order to get to the point we realize that we don’t need to understand it all (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• God always has something more He wants us to understand. There is always some sin that we have to confess. He is always wanting us to grow in grace and knowledge (II Pet. 3: 18) (Final Thoughts on Setting Our Affections on Things Above).
• We begin to know God when we diligently pursue knowing Him and doing His Will (A Three-Step Approach to Knowing God).
• If we are banking on being a good person without submitting our lives to God for admission to heaven, we will be in for a huge let down. God only gives eternal life to those who have submitted their lives to Him (The Morality of Being Lovely).
• We have to remember that we cannot earn our way into Heaven. The focus has to be on Him, not our actions (The Morality of Being Lovely).
• Do you get that our character being lovely is tied to our worship of sovereign God? That is why we are to worship regularly, praise him continuously, and live joyfully because of all he is doing for us – even in the rough spots (The Morality of Being Lovely).
• We have to remember that our relationship with God is an inward thing that presents itself outwardly. Don’t read that to mean our actions aren’t important. They are. Sanctification uses our actions to change our character to be like God’s (The Morality of Good Report).
• The outward walk without the inward faith means nothing to God (How Do Morals Improve Our Discipleship?)
• God will use His grace to guide us to where He wants us to be. He will use our Sanctification Roads to grow us to be more like Him (How Do Morals Improve Our Discipleship?)
• It is a two-step process in attesting to the quality of God’s moral code. We need to affirm that God’s law is pure. We need to confess we are far from pure (Improving Our Discipleship through Glorifying God).
• Our entire life should be focused on glorifying God through living morally. The bottom line is our motivation. Are we choosing to follow God or not? (Improving Our Discipleship through Glorifying God).
• We go from a worldview focus of doing good to doing good to expand God’s kingdom (How Do Morals Refine Us?).
• If our morals don’t come through our submission to God, they are just worldly morals, not Christian graces (How Do Morals Improve our Discipleship?).
• We don’t have to pray in the King James Version style. We don’t have to have enough words to rival Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Our prayers have to be genuine worship. They have to be relationship building (Attributes of God: Sovereignty).
• God not only made us, He has specific plans for us. The King James Version of Jeremiah 29: 11 says His plans are for peace. It isn’t a prosperity gospel or what we can gain. It is about our spiritual condition and our character (Attributes of God: Sovereignty).
• What God does or doesn’t do isn’t tied to what we ask or think. God is going to follow His plan for us (Attributes of God: Omnipotent and Powerful).
• God’s power is in us — the power that raised Jesus and others from the dead, that split the Red Sea and the Jordon River, that stopped the sun from making its trek to night (Attributes of God: Omnipotent and Powerful).
• Most importantly, God is growing us. I think sometimes we feel that quest for godliness has to be deep theological growth. I don’t know. An Old Testament faith was simple — an undoubting faith. If perfection isn’t what we do or don’t do but is about being — really — that is simple. What do we believe? How deep is it? Does it guide our actions? (Attributes of God: Omnipresent).
• God’s beauty should be revealed as our inner beauty through our character (Attributes of God: Beautiful).
• It doesn’t work when we try to bring God down to our unholiness (Attributes of God: Holy).
• God desires us to have His character (Attributes of God: Holy).
• When we focus on God, He will give us His peace — that is part of His work. In that way, we can be peaceful like Him — making the work perfect and complete. Complete equals perfect (Attributes of God: Perfect).
• God wants us to submit to Him because He loves us and we love Him. He wants us to want to have the relationship with Him (Attributes of God: Perfect).
• We worship God by imitating Him. That means we try to be perfect (Attributes of God: Perfect).
• We are made in God’s image. That means, even though we may not currently be like Him, we can grow to have His character. We grow by the grace of God (Attributes of God: Perfect).
• What we cannot forget is that God possesses the morals and attributes He is asking us to possess. That is why we are called to be imitators (Attributes of God: Just).
• God’s truth and faithfulness in carrying out His word is the foundation for our hope and trust. We have to have that foundation in order to believe in salvation (Attributes of God: True).
• If we know God and try to imitate Him, we will imitate His love (Attributes of God: Loving).
• In order to live correctly, we need to know God and become disciples. We are all made in His image and have the capacity to love in us. But we have to love in His pure way, not the worldview’s tolerant way (Attributes of God: Loving).
• The contrast of the idol being fed and Sovereign God not dependent on mankind is huge. Mankind had to do everything for the idol. God doesn’t need a relationship with us. He wants a relationship with us (Attributes of God: Providential and Caring).
• We can’t delude ourselves into thinking that, since God is a loving God, He is not going to hold us accountable (Attributes of God: Providential and Caring).
• We have to keep God’s provision in perspective. We are not entitled to anything He gives us. We don’t even deserve it. God provides for us because of His unfailing love. That is just Who He is (Attributes of God: Providential and Caring).
• God’s being just does not allow Him to accept sinful behavior. God will stay true to His character (Attributes of God: Just).
• Once we are alone with God, we can truly search for and seek Him. He will spend the time with us to convict us and to answer our questions (Promoting Silence in Our Soul).
• Renewing our minds – in fact, all of us – means changing ourselves to be more like God (Transformed to a New Mind).
• Renewing your mind means changing all of our inner selves – our views and convictions (Transformed to a New Mind).
• Religion — a.k.a. our relationship with God — is a gift that we can either accept or reject. What is hard about that? Well, for some people, it can be a hard decision. Also, serving God has its difficulties as well. He described it as a pitched battle with the enemy between us and our reward. It is difficult, but not impossible (Transformed by Persistence).
• Scriptures help us transform to His godliness (Using the Scriptures to Build Hope).

Father God. We want to have a relationship with You. We want the purpose for that relationship to be changing us so that we have Your character. Help us to grow as we navigate the Sanctification Road so that we imitate You. Amen.