You Cannot Handle the Doctrine of Godliness Without Godly Fear

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It is utterly ridiculous to handle the doctrine of godliness without the fear of God.  It is stupid to say, "Being a Christian is not important - godliness is what is important."  There is no godliness without a loving, personal relationship with God.  There is only godlessness without God.  Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and with it comes knowledge and understanding.  To understand what the verse means, this fear is reverential fear not fear in trembling, this is the fear that drives out worldly fear and the only way to learn godliness is through humility and submissiveness not through rebelliousness and arrogance.

The doctrine of godliness is so severely mishandled because those who mishandle it do not have any fear of God whatsoever.  Romans 3:18 warns of people who have no fear of God before their eyes.  If they do not fear God, I do not expect them to handle godliness correctly.  Either they make godliness an achievement of human effort or something that can just be ignored.  There is no way that anybody who truly has reverential fear for God would teach salvation by works or salvation as a license to sin.  Both views are not in the Bible.  If anybody mishandles the doctrine of godliness - it is only because such people are not saved to start with.

The saved people know the doctrine of godliness and reject ungodliness.  If you say grace is a license to sin then that is not grace at all.  Titus 2:11-14 and Ephesians 2:8-10 teach that God's grace changes the life of the believer.  The grace of God teaches people to hate sin and love the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior.  1 Corinthians 6:11 states the fact that such were some of you saying that the lifestyle of the Christian is different than when they were not fit to inherit God's Kingdom.  They were supposedly not worthy to enter it but that forgiveness which they did not deserve made them want to no longer live their old lives anymore.  Only false converts believe that they have a license to sin or that God's grace allows them to sin freely.