Growing in Christ Part 15

Contrary to popular belief godliness does not mean to be ‘godlike,’ but rather, godliness in its most basic definition is to worship well, to be very devout, or to have great reverence for God.

When Peter encourages us to be godly, he is by no means encouraging us to strive to be like God, but rather to revere Him, and worship Him well, and be devout in our relationship toward Him.

We have steadily lost our reverence for God as a generation, and we can see the outcome of bringing God down to our level, or raising ourselves up to His.

When man loses reverence for God, when men no longer see God as God but as someone they can manipulate, cajole, and talk into seeing things their way, obedience is no longer implied, nor is it practiced.

In our day and age God no longer has a will and a standard. God can no longer say what He embraces and rejects, what He loves and what He abhors, what He enjoys and what He hates. It is men who have taken it upon themselves to dictate terms and tell God what He can and cannot love, what He can and cannot accept, because the godliness of which Peter speaks is utterly lacking, and men only speak of God when the situation necessitates it.

We have become our own de facto gods and we like it that way!

We have taken it upon ourselves to revere ourselves, to worship ourselves, to follow the urgings of our own hearts rather than the commandments of almighty God, all the while being told by those who claimed to be His representatives here on earth that this was His ultimate will for our lives.

Godliness begets obedience. Godliness begets submission. Godliness begets the crucifying of one’s desires, one’s aspirations, one’s wants, and the following after the Christ with all diligence and enthusiasm.

A godly individual will always inquire what God’s will is in any given matter rather than assume that God’s will is automatically in line with their own, and so if they will or desire a thing, God must will and desire the selfsame thing.

We have made a doctrine out of doing what is right in our own eyes, utterly dismissing the fact that by doing what is right in our own eyes we are headed toward death.

Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

Godliness compels us to be dependent upon God, and seek to know His ways. Godliness compels us to acknowledge our own limitations, or own shortcomings, our ignorance of certain things, and humbly seek to know the way of God, for only His way leads to life.

When godliness is not one of the building blocks making up our spiritual house, we will be ever confident in our foolishness and folly but confidence notwithstanding it is still foolishness and folly.

Because reverence for God has diminished within the church, presumption in regards to the will of God on men’s part has as a direct result bloomed and blossomed into a hideous mass of voices each protecting their pet doctrine, denomination, proclivity, or pet vice they are unwilling to part with.

In order to realize just how engrained this de facto god mentality is within the church, or just how absent godliness is from among those calling themselves the children of God, all you have to do is Biblically point out the incongruity between their deeply held beliefs and God’s holy Word.

It is then that you will see the true hearts of men; it is then that you will see the utter lack of godliness or desire for true worship, because they will tell you and pointedly so in a hundred different ways why the Word is wrong and by relation God is wrong and why they are right.

The root of rebellion, disobedience, and disregard for the will of God is absence of godliness on the part of professing believers. If godliness were an ever present ideal, if it was visible within the construct of our spiritual home, then we would walk humbly and obediently upon the narrow path which God has laid out without attempting to widen it, circumvent it, or find a shortcut to our final destination.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.