THE SECRET TO GODLINESS
2 Peter 1:5-9 …add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love....For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even blind and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
One of my personal struggles with going to conferences has been the speakers tell us to do so many things that by the end of the conference I find it’s all too much and impossible to do! It’s quite the same when it comes to “godliness”.
You can listen to five different preachers and they will all come up with something different that will produce godliness in your life. Generally, they will all come back to one thing – “Discipline!”. If you are more disciplined, that will produce more self-control which will produce more Christian character and this will lead to more godliness.
But if a person lacks the qualities mentioned in the above scripture, it is not because the person lacks discipline. Today’s scripture reveals what they lack…
For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even blind and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
It says that they are “short-sighted”. They have forgotten that they have been cleansed from all their sins!
When you receive the revelation that through God’s abundant grace and the gift of His righteousness you are completely forgiven, this will not only produce a deep, genuine love for God but all the qualities of godliness.
The Bible illustrates this so clearly.
Luke 7:36-48 shares the story of the immoral woman who poured an alabaster flask filled with fragrant oil onto the feet of Jesus. This flask of oil was worth a year’s wages and this great outpouring of love, generosity, and godliness was in response to the knowledge that Jesus forgave sinners!
The knowledge that she could be cleansed from all her sins was so powerful, that it produced this amazing act of love.
It was a similar outcome for Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.
He was a chief tax collector and he became very rich because he was corrupt and over-taxed people. One day when Jesus was passing by, Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see him (because he was very short). Jesus stopped, and invited Himself to lunch with Zacchaeus. This one encounter with the One who forgives sinners had a powerful impact on this tax collector where he said he would give half of his wealth to the poor and those he cheated, he would repay them back four times!
Such great generosity and godliness were not because he was going to receive an advantage or perk from Jesus, it was because Jesus was not only a friend of sinners but the forgiver of sinners.
The secret to godliness is your belief in the truth that you have been forgiven. Godliness flows from a revelation that you have been cleansed of your sins!