The Practice Of Godliness

by L.A. Hickling, Cromer, U.K. | Category: General | Dec 1984

I remember reading a poem in which the writer said:

I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day,

I'd rather one would walk with me than merely point the way,

All the lectures you deliver may very wise and true

But I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do.

And that gives us something to think about. Walking sermons; that's what we all are. Our friends and neighbours may not be particularly interested in what we say, especially when we talk to them about spiritual things, but they cannot fail to notice what we do. Whether we like it or not, our lives are walking sermons, read by those around us.

In the Old Testament we read that Elisha used often to call for a meal at the house of a well-to-do woman in Shunem. (The incident is recorded in 2 Kings 4). His very presence there led the woman to remark to her husband, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy' man of God." She perceived it by the sort of man he was. I wonder if our lives have that sort of impact on the people we come in contact with.

When the apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus he reminded them that they were once darkness. But there had been a change in their lives. Through faith in Christ Jesus they had become changed people, born again they had become light. So he says to them: "Live as children of light ... and find out what pleases the Lord... be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity" (Eph. 5:8-16). The day by day practice of godliness is important. The fruit of the light, writes Paul, is goodness and righteousness and truth. These things are the practical evidence of the working of the Spirit of God in our lives. They are conspicuous in a world where they are so sadly lacking: goodness (that is the moral uprightness of a beautiful character), righteousness and truth.

On one occasion Peter and John were brought before the rulers and elders and teachers of the Jews in Jerusalem to answer for what they were teaching. The record of the incident in Acts 4:13 says that though these eminent men saw that Peter and John were just unschooled, ordinary men, they took note that they had been with Jesus. It showed in their whole demeanour. Would it not be a wonderful thing and a God glorifying thing, if those with whom we rub shoulders day by day could note the same thing about us: that we had been with Jesus.

(Scriptural quotations are from the N.I.V.)

L.A. Hickling, Cromer, U.K. | Dec 1984
General