Of all the conditions of a man, this one is quite possibly the saddest. This poor man knows God and is even willing to ascribe to some of who He truly is. He is not however willing to wholly follow God. There is some part of his life that he is not willing to sacrifice. In the preceding verses, Paul lists different sins that such men allow to run rampant in their life. Some may even use godliness to further their own selfish desires instead of using it for what it was intended.

It is sad to realize that Christians sometimes deny the power of godliness in their lives. They deny it by not giving themselves fully to it. They may say the right things and even look clean on the outside. Yet there is a fundamental problem in their walk: they have refused to crucify themselves completely. They do not want to be godly in every area, because being godly is too hard. It requires too much change. Yet if they do not submit to it fully, they have denied its power. God cannot stand with us if we refuse to give ourselves wholly to Him. Such sin hinders our prayer, and hinders our desire to get close to Him. The closer we get to Him, the more we see what He disapproves of, the more he beckons us to change. If we refuse to do so, our only option is to back away from Him. With this distance between us, we lose our power. Godliness is not about church attendance, or how we appear. Godliness is about our relationship to God.

On the flip side, we see that Paul asserts godliness as truly powerful. God, using power working through US, is able to accomplish more than we could ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20) Paul states that when we continue in sin, we deny its power to work in our lives. However, if we give ourselves fully to it, then we would find the great power of godliness would now be at our command. God starts working through us! With this great power we would be able to glorify Him in all that we do.