The Pharisees famously attempted to carry out some of the practices of those who follow the Lord. Yet, while they honored God with their lips (and some actions), their hearts were far from God…When we engage in the externals of devoting ourselves to God, but we don’t actually love Him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we show false devotion.

Christmas break is a wonderful time for a professor. That is, as long as the grading is done, the syllabuses for next semester are completed, and the online course components are ready! In between attending to those and looking at Christmas lights, one still needs to walk with the Lord. This Christmas break I decided I would try to read one book of the Bible over and over for my Bible intake. I chose the book of Titus. There is much to commend in the book. Today I’d like to share an observation that sparked a survey of the concept of godliness, and then take you on a simple word study.

In Titus 1, Paul greets Titus (a young pastor in Crete) with the following words,

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.

As I read those words, I was struck by the thought that knowing truth is something that will lead a person to godliness. Or to say it another way, godliness is produced by the knowledge of truth. This means that if I lack this knowledge, no matter how I try, I won’t become godly. Imagine if you were really trying to grow in godliness, but you didn’t understand this point. You could very well try to be godly and fail because you’d be going about it all wrong. I was glad to have studied this verse. I was glad to see that here is an avenue that was bearing fruit in my life in a way I didn’t even realize.

But this led me to wonder…what else the Bible has to say about how to become godly? The next moment I had fired up a quick word search and discovered that the Bible shares a few more truths that lead us to godliness. This time of study was profitable and this post is the fruit of that study. However, what started as a post has ended up as a series of posts. So this post is just the first a series that will lay out 6 paths that lead to godliness.

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