We often sing about the holiness of God. “You are holy,” we sing with all our hearts and adoration of the attributes of the Trinity. And yet, I wonder how much we understand what we’re ascribing to God when we affirm that He is holy.
According to the dictionary, “holy” describes a thing or person dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose. It’s sacred. A lesser definition is that the word describes something spiritually or morally excellent. So when we tell God He is holy, we’re worshiping Him by saying, “You’re set apart; sacred; spiritual and moral perfection.”
One of the neat things about holiness is that God isn’t the only person or thing that is holy. Through the blood of Jesus, we get to be holy, as well – as the Apostle Peter says, we’re a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9).
Sadly, holiness has been misunderstood and misrepresented for many years in various churches. When it has been explained to me, the general outcome was, “You need to work hard and follow all of God’s rules so that you can be holy and sanctified.” That description basically means, “You’ve been saved by the blood of Jesus, but it’s your own works of the flesh that will make you holy.” (Paul had a few not-so-complimentary things to say about that in Galatians.)
Holiness for us is impossible without God and, specifically, without the Holy Spirit working inside of us. Holy living is empowered by the Spirit, and the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) are pretty good definitions of what living a holy life looks like.
Now, there is a part of holiness that requires us to choose God over anything else. The definition is about being set apart for God to work in us and through us, and that’s difficult if not impossible if we are pursuing sin. But holiness is not works of the flesh. It’s making conscious choices knowing that we are set apart for God – choices that are in line with the Holy Spirit within us, choices that lead us closer to God and not further away, choices that are sacred and not evil.
Holiness, for us, is choosing purity. It’s choosing to be different because of a divine calling, a sacred designation, and a value for what God has assigned, set in place, and called into being over what anyone else says, thinks, or plans. It’s being all His in everything we do, think, say, and do. In that sense, it’s also seeking first the Kingdom of God in our lives (Matthew 6:33).
