I. The word godliness signifies a religious character in all its integrity, with special reference to God: it is therefore the highest idea to which your aspiration can be raised. It is not simply salvation from sin, or holiness as separation from evil, but the result into which both flow. It is religion known by its highest possible name. And this piety, thus clothed with its perfection, you are bidden to seek as the business of your life: as the goal of all other aspirations. There is not in the Bible a more impressive and stimulating appeal to your own individual energy. The words assume it as the universal law of the supernatural order that one condition of our spiritual wellbeing, indeed of our spiritual life, is our own sedulous self-discipline. There is much music in the air that is not played to this note. There is a danger of our resting on Jesus and casting all our care on Him, in a sense for which He gives no authority.
II. Exercisethyself unto godliness. With regard to all the exercises of a holy life, whether the training of the soul to overcome sin, or its education to habits of deep devotion, ever more remember that the aim must be godliness, and nothing but that. Here is, the protection of all religious discipline against the abuse to which it is liable. For instance, if your end is likeness to God, to God as revealed in His all-holy Son, you will never rest in the means. You will not mistake the aids and helps of religion for religion itself; you will for ever be freeing your way through them to Him who is the end. And if the whole soul is set on genuine godliness, no failure will divert its pursuit from that. The very sincerity of its desire will shield it from despair.
W. B. Pope, Sermons and Charges,p. 314.
Reference: 1 Timothy 4:7. R. G. Gould, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 228.