Heb 12:14 says ‘Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.’ Holiness is a much misunderstood concept, but being holy is at the heart of the Christian faith because it is at the heart of God. We are urged to be holy because God is holy (1 Pet 1:16), and this has the idea of being set apart for God, whole and reflecting the divine image within us. Holiness is God’s nature and character and people and things are said to be holy by their relation to God, as they are offered by Him or to Him or before Him. We often have a negative view of holiness as dourness, a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude of recrimination and blame, but true holiness, whilst awe-inspiring and daunting, is not something which is dull; as C. S. Lewis says, it is irresistible, for it draws us to the otherness of God.
Holiness speaks of purity and single-minded pursuit of God, and as such, we all need to grow in holiness. There has to be a difference between how we live and how the world lives. The Christian message is counter-cultural. It transforms our ways of thinking, our attitudes, our behaviour… and if the world does not see this transformation, it will accuse us of hypocrisy and lose interest in the words we speak.
