All Publications by Puah

What if the greatest danger to your faith isn’t rebellion, but planning your life while God watches from the sidelines?

When we find ourselves powerless as a Christian, we need to pay attention to training in godliness. It’s where the power and the favour of God lives. It’s available to us today, right now, within reach, but it also takes time.  Being godly isn’t just about praying, reading scripture, serving in church. In 1 Tim 4:7, it tells us that being godly is a training. Godliness starts with a mindset. Instead of things beyond our control like silly irreverent myths, we focus on what we can control: training ourselves for godliness. Now think about it: what are our minds filled with? Our goals, desires? What we lack? The next exciting thing? Our fears? Whatever they are, it’s important to discipline the mind to focus on godliness training. To embark on the training, there are sacrifices that we have to make, and be ready to make them.  There are essential elements in training. There are structured consistent actions or skills, an outcome you are training for and something you struggle with that you get better and better in. For example, research shows that to grow muscle (outcome), one needs to train 2 times a week (consistent actions) and one should train to failure (struggle). It goes the same with any area that you want to be skilled in, including godliness. 1 Tim 4:13 says: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” The actions to be taken are: Each action progressing from the last.  Today, where are we in our training? If we struggle with reading the bible, we could start from there. If we are already reading the bible, then we can strive to exhort others. If we are already exhorting others, we can start to learn to teach others.  Progress is what makes the training effective. Paul tells Timothy to practice and immerse in all these, and then he will see progress (1 Tim 4:15). What would immersing ourselves in it in today’s world look like? Often, in our daily lives, the world which is in contrast with God, speaks louder than our practice. Leaving us to find all ways to turn to God in everything that we do, at every moment, to keep from conforming and to renew our minds (Rom 12:2) – When we work, while we are on our phones, when we speak, when we’re emotional. It’s so simple yet so difficult. The discipline and intentionality it requires – no wonder it’s called a “training”!  By training in godliness, we are not only getting the satisfaction of a personal relationship with God, we are building our fear of God (the foundation of wisdom) and building up treasures that do not rust. Truly, valuable in every way – in this life and the life to come.