When you think of godliness, you may picture someone very saintly, a person who is very holy and pious. Their very demeanor suggests their love and devotion to the Lord. Perhaps you even envision someone who has separated themselves to live alone or with others who are just as devoted to only spending time with the Lord and keeping themselves apart from people.
Actually, it is relatively easy to love God; you can’t see Him and besides, even though He has revealed His nature very clearly in the Word of God, in your own imagination you can make Him into whatever you want Him to be. That’s why so many people pretend that their relationship with the Lord is, “just between me and God.” — they have imagined their own version of who God is and that is what they love, not the God of the Bible! Even if you stick with divine revelation concerning who God is, what’s not to love? He loved you first and it’s easy to love someone who loves you; anyone can do that.
So, if it is easy to love God, godliness should be the true mark of a child of God, right? That’s when you know you have arrived and everyone can see you are the real deal, no? No. There’s something that is more challenging than loving God — loving people. The first step toward loving people is Philadelphia but without the capital “P”, the Greek word for brotherly love. Through godliness, we can grow into loving others and even putting them above ourselves, but this is still at the level of natural, fraternal affection; people you are connected to through the bonds of family or some other comradely association.
But, the thing that will cause all to see you are a follower of Jesus is when you start with faith and then add in virtue and grow in knowledge of God and His ways, developing self-control and sticking with it until you become a godly person. Then, to that godliness you add brotherly love so that you begin to put others before yourself. Finally, agape love; loving other people with God’s love. That’s what it is really all about, being a vessel through which God’s love can touch and change others. That’s where godliness will always end up!