Godliness

I was reading Moroni 10:32 ,

Yea, acome unto Christ, and be bperfected in him, and cdeny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and dlove God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be eperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

It struck me that the first thing one does is come unto Christ, the second thing is to be perfected in him and the third is to deny yourself of all ungodliness. Perhaps as one come to rely on Christ, one realizes how far away he really is. But, that doesn't really matter since he takes up all the slack and you are perfected in him. At that point the struggle begins: denying yourself all ungodliness. This step requires that the person needs to start to grow. And this growth is difficult. All those poor character traits, bad habits and weaknesses that have made your natural man dentrites completely inflexible need to be worked on. But, we have Christ's grace to assist us. We could never do it alone. If, this wasn't true, you would have your defects. But, you still have them. They don't go away. You have tried and tried. You take the sacrament over and over again, repenting, wanting the weaknesses to depart. But they don't.

I believe that denying yourself all ungodliness has much to do with the character traits detailed by the Lord in the sermon on the mount. It is impossible for the natural man to even comprehend living precepts taught by the Lord on the mount. In fact, most of the teachings are foolishness to the natural man. Who in their right mind would turn the other cheek when verbally attacked? Its normal to call or think that someone is a fool when they do foolish things. Looking on a beautiful woman can bring obvious desires that the Lord counsel us to curtail since we might be committing adultury in our hearts. It is definitely incomprehensible to the natural man to consider the lillies of the field, how they toil not and apply the teaching in his own life. How do relax and flow through life, caring for nothing of the world, enjoying each moment? I could go on and on. Godliness, in my opinion, is the development of character traits that mirror Jesus Christ. Godliness requires the faith to desire to change deeply seated habits. The gift of charity must be bestowed on this humble follower of Christ because the attributes of charity are exactly what is needed to be able to live the sermon on the mount. You have to be long suffering to go the extra mile, you must believe all things and hope all things and endure all things to give your children good gifts rather than using compulsion to get what you want.

We can't see the results of living this new way. Since we can't see it, we don't believe that it will really work. Most of us can't even see our weaknesses since our culture teaches us over and over again that the natural man character traits are good. We fight back when when attacked. We believe we a justified and pat ourselves on the back because we verbally one the fight with the other individual. The person who has been granted repentance (Alma 13, last verse), does't see it that way. He is accutely aware that he has failed once again to hold his tongue. He feels terrible and wants to apologize yet again to his loved one for being such a jerk. When this person works out his salvation in fear and trembling or in other words, works at the weakness, relying on the grace of God - - when he gets to that place when he usually fights back, defending himself, digging into his natural man bag of tricks - - he has not desire to do it. He is calm. He isn't gritting his teeth. At this moment, this man realizes that charity has been granted and he no longer has a desire to evil. A miracle has just occurred. He knows and God knows it. This man immediately, praises God in prayer, thanking him for making his weakness a strength unto him.

He is on the road to becoming a just man and even a just man made perfect.