What is Godliness?

Sunday’s sermon was on 1 Peter 1:5-9 (http://subsplash.com/chcc/v/35c3f75).  One of the Pastor’s Steve’s points talked about adding to our faith the different qualities of a Christian life. “Make every effort to supplement your faith  with virtue, and virtue  with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control  with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness” (2 Peter 1:5-6 ESV). When he got down to godliness, I was surprised. He said that several translations used the word reverence or piety instead of godliness. My mind stopped and later, I checked out a few other translations. Out of nine translations, none used reverence but Young’s Literal Translation used piety. So where did that reverence come from? Next I looked at Greek lexicons. Three out of four clearly stated reverence, respect piety toward God or similar wording. Wow, I discovered then, that my concept of godliness had been way off. I thought godliness was being good, living a life that reflected god-like character. It turns out I could have simply looked at a dictionary. The Encarta Dictionary defines it as 1. Devout - devoted to or worshiping God.

So the Sermon opened my understand that godliness is my attitude toward God. Do I worship him in the way I should? No, I often have struggles in this area with distractions during worship or just going with the flow and not really paying attention to what I really should be doing. I am not godly when I’m simply enjoying the song but not the Savior to whom I’m singing. That is in times of formal worship. What about the rest of the day? Does my life show that I respect and have a reference for God? If not, then I’m not godly.

I’ve always been impressed with Gideon before his famous battle. He was told to go and listen to what the enemy was saying about him. Just outside the enemy lines, “As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped” (Judg 7:15 ESV). It reminded me that I don’t have to be singing loudly or in church to worship God. It can be anywhere. I’m also reminded, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8 NIV).

One other thing about being godly, it means accepting Jesus Christ and all He said including that He is the only way to the Father (John 14:6), that He is God (John 10:30) because “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him” (John 5:23 NIV). If you don’t know Jesus, you can’t be godly.