active godliness

December 27, 2009

so i finally have time to blog again!

i qt-ed on this topic awhile ago, but because of finals, sickness, and a plethora of other things, i have not had time to sit down and just put my thoughts down.

7Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. (1 timothy 4:7-8)

godliness. i feel like we view this more as a characteristic than an active process. all christians, to a certain extent, want to be godly, want to be like Jesus, etc, but so few make it a high priority. we often leave it as a want, a desire, a goal, that we place too high and too out of reach because that seems like something too hard for us and only attainable by those pastors, saints, holy parents we see in the church and we don't see the necessity of it in our own lives. i mean, we can just grow by occasionally reading the bible, praying, going to church, fellowshipping right?

but here, as in many places elsewhere in the Bible, we are called to be godly, to train ourself to be godly. obviously, we don't just wake up one day, and are suddenly GODLY! it's a process, a training, that we must willingly put ourselves through mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. and we will fail on our own because we are wretched broken humans, but when we have that one desire that puts our words and thoughts into actions, when we have that willingness to give it all up to be godly for the sake of Christ, God's power and strength will work through us and enable us to even start dying to ourselves, to our selfish desires and wants, to our old sins and habits that seem to never die.

i believe one of the first actions we must do to start even wanting to die to ourselves is to hate sin enough. i've come to realize that so often, we do not hate sin enough. we compromise, and we let it stay in our lives because it's fun, or it's comfortable, and it's a lot easier than getting rid of it completely from our lives. i think a lot of the compromises we have with the sin in our lives can be attributed to the fact that we don't really see how damaging it is to us spiritually, because so many times, those effects cannot be seen as readily; it is a steady and slow erosion of our spiritual awareness and lives. first, we don't see the effects, and second, we sometimes let our pride get us to believe that lie that we can be immune to those effects because we are just that good. but really, we are not immune. we can never be immune to the effects of sin. and it's much safer to run from all sin completely, then play with its fire, hoping to never get burned, when really, we've been slowly burning all along. when dealing with sin, i believe the best way, is to get rid of it completely immediately. not gradually. one cannot stop lying gradually. you either stop lying altogether, or you are still letting the presence of that sin dwell in your life. yes, we may fail at times. but the entire mindset is different. when we approach sin with the mindset of letting it die gradually, we are only fooling ourselves, because we are setting up the whole premise of letting it still stay in small forms, when really, God calls for the mindset of getting rid of it completely and consciously.

12Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. (1 timothy 4:12)

i like this verse a lot. because it is truly a reminder that it doesn't matter that we are young, that we are still called to a holy and godly standard. we are called to set an example in every single area of our lives. in speech. in the words we say to others and about others. but not only that, i believe this can pertain to the words we let into our lives as well. the songs, the movies, the books, the gossip/rumors we hear from around us, these all do and will have an effect on us. our thoughts and the words we speak are all in one way or another a product of what we read, what we listen to, what we put into our heads. and if it's not from a godly source, then how can we expect to produce good godly thoughts. it's like expecting to be healthy when all you eat everyday is candy and junk food with a cup of milk everyday. i am still striving to have a higher standard in this area. i fail often, but i will not give up.

in life, in faith. in life, that just encompasses everything. in every decision, every process, every action, every thought, we are to set an example, and that will at times, mean that we should give up our right to certain things that may not necessarily be an obvious sin, but we give it up to pursue something greater: godliness in our lives, that we may be a witness to God's good work in our lives. i believe that when we are willing to give up our entire lives, our every action and thought to God, that in itself, is a major step of faith, and it shows in the daily decisions we make. the daily sacrifices we have opportunity to give up, these will all reflect our faith.

in love, in purity. loving others can be so hard sometimes. it's difficult to love simply without demanding or expecting anything in return. but God calls us to love, to put up with other people that we do not get along as well with, to care for those we really may not care about at all. to love, simply because as annoying or terrible as that person may be, we realize that we are no better, and Jesus came to die for us and save us all equally. in purity. purity seems to be getting less and less common these days. purity in motivations, in actions, in thoughts, etc. we are crafty. we live for the moment. we enjoy the temporary pleasures, the temporary satisfactions, and we throw all thoughts of consequences and whether or not these things, when revealed on the final judgement day, will be a good witness of our life in Christ, to the wind.

we can, i suppose, ignore godliness. we can live our lives the way we have always. leaving our christian lives and spirits wrapped up in the secular and worldly desires and ambitions of our hearts, never letting it break through and emanating from our beings. because to have Jesus break through our lives would be too dramatic, too big of a change, it will throw our lives upside down, and we will not be able to plead ignorance anymore, we will be faced with the full responsibility of crucifying everything that is of ourselves and living entirely for God. but we can, i suppose, ignore it all. we can leave our christian lives just at the "i believe that Jesus died for my sins, and I accept him as my savior" stage. for it says "he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames" (1 corinthians 3: 15). we're still saved, but only as one barely escaping the flames of hell. i find that tragic, and a waste of the new life that God has so willingly given us at the price of His Son's blood.

1For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (titus 2:11-12)

another verse i qt-ed on recently. seems pretty self-explanatory. we all have the grace of God, we have all accepted His salvation. let us, then, begin to let that grace and salvation work in our lives by rejecting all forms of ungodliness and worldly passions. that we may live self controlled, upright, godly lives even in this corrupt present age. that we may really be witnesses of how transforming Jesus' life really is within us.