Pursue Godliness
A Servant’s First Priority
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What I have just described should be the nature of your whole seminary experience. It should be God-centered, God-controlled, and God-glorifying. And it should be aflame with burning love for Christ! If it is, your time in seminary will be completely transformative for you. You will become a godly man who stands as a model disciple of Jesus, a man the people of God can and will follow, because you have become a man who imitates God in his self-sacrificial love for the spiritual good of others. To accomplish providing the example that the flock of God needs, you must be consumed with a desire for God and reflecting Him through your personal godliness, an adjective that is by its very nature summative. It encompasses a grand sweep of ideas--a plethora of vital qualities, attitudes, and actions. So, how can it be described concisely? Godliness is to love god passionately first and demonstrate His love to others with great zeal. It is to show reverence and trust toward God always in all things, and to reflect His character as much as is humanly possible by His grace.
Godliness is seeing life through the eyes of God and acting and reacting accordingly, toward others and to the varied circumstances of life. To be godly is to love God, to know God, to listen to God, to speak to God, to worship God, to commune with God, to obey God, to desire god, and to pursue God. To be godly is, in short, just to be all about God. You think about Him, talk about Him, and rejoice in His daily presence with you. You reverence Him and want others to do the same. When others are around you, it takes only moments for them to realize that you are a totally God-focused person. You live with eternity in view in this temporal, transitory life because He is the Eternal One and Author of both your temporal and eternal life. This One who is God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior. He sits at the right hand of the Father always interceding for you, as you love and serve Him every day.
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About the Book
In his first letter to Timothy, the pastor of the church at Ephesus and his protégé in Christian life and ministy, the Apostle Paul exhorted him, “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim. 4-7). Just two chapters later, the Apostle returned to this idea, encouraging Timothy to flee all sin and to “pursue ... godliness” (1 Tim. 6:11).
Godliness is a recurring theme in Paul’s epistle, urged especially upon men training to become leaders of the church as pastors and evangelists. But the pursuit of godliness is also commanded of all others who hunger and thirst to follow Jesus as His disciple. Attaining godliness looms large in the New Testament as the primary outworking of the greatest command in the Word of God, spoken by Christ himself: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind”
(Matt 22:37).
In Pursue Godliness: A Servant’s First Priority, the author seeks to answer the question, “What does the Bible teach about how a Christian can make major strides forward in his growth in godliness?” Letting Scripture speak for itself through over 1,450 passages, the meaning, priorities, primary qualities, and practices for significant progress in godliness are unfolded in this comprehensive introduction to the subject. While a detailed, in-depth treatment of this Scriptural topic, it is written in clear, easy-to-understand language, not requiring a theologian’s training or vocabulary to understand. Read and grow. This is a book written for your transformation, for His glory!
About the Author
Stephen J. Hankins (PhD, Bob Jones University Seminary) is distinguished professor of New Testament and expository preaching at his alma mater.
While the son of a non-Christian father and a rebel against God’s ways, Steve came to Christ through the spiritual influence of his mother and youth pastor. Christ opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel during a spiritual revival at Camp Patmos, a Christian summer camp on Kelly’s Island, Lake Erie, USA. At Bob Jones University and Seminary since 1977, he has been preaching and teaching the Word of God and training young men and women for ministry. He has served Christ there as a professor, administrator, and dean of the Seminary. Steve has been a pastor in four churches in South Carolina and neighboring North Carolina while serving at the University. Sandy, his wife, is his lifelong partner in ministry. They have two sons, two daughters, and ten grandchildren.