Godliness – Godly Life Part 9

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:3-11 TPT (Click Link)

5 So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, 6 and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, 7 and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. (2 Peter 1:5-7 TPT)

Peter wants us to add godliness to our faith and goodness and understanding and self-control and patient (not passive) endurance. Godliness is possibly best described as a sense of wonder and reverence at God’s goodness, mercy, grace, and holiness.

It means not taking God lightly and casually, but being reverently worshipful. There’s a lot to be said for being comfortable with Jesus’ Good Shepherd care for us and with Abba Father’s love and compassion for us. But this godliness goes beyond the casual and familiar and recognizes that God is holy and dwells in unapproachable light.

This is beyond being effusively thankful for the blessings God provides us. This is beyond expressing noisy and enthusiastic praise for the things God has accomplished on our behalf. This is a capacity for quiet reverence. This is awestruck wonder at God’s greatness. This is humility as we acknowledge all that God is.

You know how sometimes when we’re in a church service and the singing is about how thankful we are, or the songs are about how great are the things God has done? And then we sing a song about how holy and incomparable God is and it makes you want to kneel down as an expression of reverence and worship? That’s what this “Godliness” is about, friends. And it in no way minimizes the importance and the legitimacy of heartfelt thanksgiving and boisterous praise. But it’s something “other” and it’s something more.

Let’s add quiet reverence, awestruck wonder, and trusting humility to our range of heart expressions for God’s awesome greatness and holiness.

Prayer:

Father, You are an awesome God! We quiet our hearts before you in reverence, we lift up our hearts to you in awestruck wonder, and we bow before you in trusting humility. Receive our thanks, O God. Be blessed by our praise, O God. Be exalted to the heavens as we worship you in quiet and humble awe! Amen.