Practice Makes Perfect - Godliness

Practice Makes Perfect - Godliness

Being a person of faith is no easy thing. Faith doesn’t just happen. In the Bible, Peter tells us that our faith needs something. It needs knowledge. He goes on to give us a list of qualities that, when working together, make us a complete and fulfilled person.

What your faith needs, says Peter, is knowledge. Knowledge needs self-control and self-control needs perseverance. But perseverance is not the end. It also needs something to make it work for us. Perseverance requires godliness.

2 Peter 1:6

“...and in your perseverance, godliness...”

What exactly is godliness and how do you add it to your perseverance? Being a godly person means that you want to do what God wants you to do. It means that you are on the same page as God and you are working with Him, not against Him.

Persevering in godliness looks like this: it means that you desire to please God in everything you do. The way you work, the way you worship, the way you play, the way you talk, the way you behave on social media, the way you watch TV, the way you treat your spouse, the way you study, the way you surf the internet...get the idea? It means you have been changed and you don’t think like you used to. Paul describes it like this: “This one thing I do.” (Phil 3:13)

Paul and Peter see godliness as putting God first in everything. It is what drives us and what defines us. We persevere through the struggles and passions of life by asking ourselves this one thing; What would please God here?

Philippians 3:13-14

“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”