HOLINESS:

When I think of holiness, I think of God. Maybe others might think of Ghandi or Mother Theresa. Whatever the case, holiness is a description most of us lack, but wish others could use to describe us.

I like the way Dr. John MacArthur’s states what holiness is: holiness is “the result of the manifestation of God’s grace in our lives.” It is physical proof that God has saved us.

If you want to see what holiness is NOT, just look at sinful me. The Bible tells us we are all mired by sin – unholy. The good news, however, is that saints of God are elected into holiness (Rom 8:29) as a gift because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. There’s nothing we did to earn it, and no amount of obedience to God’s law (righteousness) earned us the privilege of being made holy. It’s all God’s doing!

As an aside, what right does any Christian have in being despicably prideful about our salvation while another stands condemned. If not for the grace of God, we, too, would be where he is.

Holiness, like righteousness, has an ironic twist: unholy people made holy by God are expected to be holy (Lev 11:45, 2Tim 1:9).

What does it mean to be holy?

In order to understand how to be holy, the Christian needs to look to none other than God (Father, Son, and Spirit). When describing Jesus Christ, Dr. MacArthur writes, Jesus had “piety without pollution”, was “without evil or malice”, and was “free from contamination” (Heb 7:26).

We can consider other passages also, passages that suggest we must have our minds trained on Christ instead of worldly lusts (1Pet 1:13-14), imitate God – including our sexual purity, contentment with relation to riches, cleanliness of thought, upright speech and humor, and thankfulness (Eph 5:1-5) – esteem others as greater than ourselves, and have a love-driven approach to our daily interactions (Php 2:1-4) to name a few.

PERSONAL REFLECTION: I am a poor imitator of God. If you really want to know what God is like, don’t look at me. I am an ugly reflection of Him. I am holy only because He has made me Holy through Jesus Christ, but I long to be holy. If not for His grace, I would not have any kind of holiness that would please Him. Thankfully, when my God looks at me, He looks at me with Jesus standing between us.

God, since you have declared me holy, please help me to be holy, that I might please you.

(All quotations from the MacArthur Study Bible.)