Living Holiness and Embracing Godliness in the Midst of Perilous Times

by: Jesus V. Sison, PTRP
​Deputy National Director, CRFV

“You must be holy because I, the Lord, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be My very own.”

For whom do we live and have our being? Could we still live our lives to the fullest during these challenging times?

Saint Paul once wrote that in the last days perilous times will come, that dangerous and difficult days will be experienced. Why? Because men and women will deviate from that which they were created according to the image and likeness of God. For men will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money. People will become utterly self-centered and greedy for the things of this world. They will become boasters, contemptuous, and proud. They will start to scoff at God and become blasphemers.  There will be those who would be disobedient to parents and have no regard for what their parents taught them as they fail to listen. There are those who are unthankful and utterly lacking in gratitude, unholy that purity is absent, and unloving that normal human affections are missing. There will also be people who would be unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, cruel, brutal, despisers of good or unprincipled, traitors, headstrong, haughty, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. People will be having a form of godliness and façade of religiosity, but their conduct denies its validity and rejecting the power that could change them to be godly. These things became prevalent and left unchecked through time that led to various social illnesses like graft and corruption, patronage and abused politics, immorality, lack of patriotism and loyalty, poverty and mendicancy, substance abuse and gambling, apathy and passivity, juvenile delinquency, factionalism and division; and rebellion and insurrection.

Is there hope and a way to turn things around so that we could live our lives to the fullest?
As mentioned, these situations came into being because the man and the woman changed their nature, diverging from the image and likeness of God. But we can go back to who we really are and reverse the effects of decay and decline in our society. If we start to respond to what the True Almighty God is saying, that we be holy as He is holy, and embrace godliness.
Being holy means to live our lives in a way that reflects who God is and His glory, rather than conforming to the ways of the world. God calls us to be holy; to be set apart for Him. We live in contact with society but not contaminated by the prevailing negative norms. When we follow His commandments and rules, earnestly seek Him, and live in His lovingkindness, we certainly stand out in the world. Through the resurrected life of Jesus Christ in us and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are led and empowered to live an extraordinary lifestyle - a holy and godly life. We manifest in our thoughts, words, and actions the divine qualities of godliness and holiness. We express the nature of a changed life, be it in our respective homes, communities, and workplaces, that truly pleases God. To simply put it, we can say that holiness refers to our being or who we are on the inside our character; and godliness refers to our “doing” or our conduct and actions. These two can never be separated from each other. We cannot say that one is more important than the other, that we neglect to behold either one of them.

As God declared that we are His, and indeed we are. For in Him, we live and move and have our being; we should only live our lives for Him in holiness and embrace godliness. We only have one life to live, let's live it in holiness. We have a society and a nation to build, let’s accurately build it in godliness.