Since this is a blog for the Godly Girl Place website, it’s probably a good idea to look a bit at the difference between being a “good” girl and a “godly” girl.

“Good” is one of those terms that has a lot of definitions (and leeway), depending on who you ask or what the situation is. You might think you’re “good” because you got a salad for lunch instead of a plate full of chili cheese fries — because you turned and walked away from your little brother instead of yelling at him again — because you don’t do drugs — because you know where to draw the line with your boyfriend — and because of lots of other reasons.

Living that way is good, you’re right. But is it godly? Maybe or maybe not. It depends on where your heart is and what the reasons behind your actions (or the reasons behind your inactions) are.

Once we become Christians, God calls us to be godly people. That basically means that He wants us to work toward being holy; saying something is holy means that it’s different, or set apart, from the things around it. If you’re a Christian, you should be different from the people around you who aren’t Christians — you should be different because God is at work in your life.

The Bible is chock full of examples teaching us how to be godly, holy people. The best example for us to follow is Jesus — because He was God Himself, right here in person on the earth. You won’t find a better teacher than the perfect one Himself! We should aim to become compassionate, loving, humble, praying, joyful people — and lots of other things. We can’t be these things on our own, which is why God gives us the Holy Spirit to help. Here’s what Paul wrote in Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

That’s a tall order! We can’t do it by ourselves and we won’t become all of those things overnight. But if we learn to focus on God and what He wants us to do, we’ll at least be moving in the right direction.