As we set out to dig into God’s call for us to be holy, let us remember the holiness of our God, the One who is the Creator of the cosmos, the Sovereign King of Kings, the Eternal Ancient of Days who was and is and always will be. In His presence, we are right to feel overwhelmed with awe and reverence. And until He sent His Son to earth to die and defeat sin and death, His sheer other-ness, which blazes with blinding, deafening, heart-stopping glory, kept Him completely unapproachable by humans. He is so pure as to be sacred and set-apart. So holy as to be absolutely singular in being.
And yet, early in God’s redemptive narrative, He called His people to be holy because He is holy (Leviticus 11:44). He laid out instructions in great detail for His people to work their way toward such holiness.
No one had to follow the Law and all its instructions more rigidly than the High Priest, for it was he who took “on himself any guilt of the people of Israel” (Exodus 28:38 NLT). As such the High Priest wore a golden, engraved medallion, identifying him as “Holy to the Lord” (v.36). This one-of-a-kind tag marked the High Priest as specially set apart for God and became a reminder of the purity and sacredness required in serving God.
The High Priest followed God’s mandates by carrying out the plan for atonement, which required constant animal sacrifices and an abundance of flowing blood – because sin always leads to death. And yet, no matter how many bulls, birds, or baby sheep gave their lives on behalf of the Israelites, the people of God could never achieve lasting righteousness. They could never be ‘clean’ enough to be holy.
That’s why the next phase of God’s Plan of Redemption included Jesus – and more blood. Rather than giving us an attempt at holiness with a list of rules and an endless parade of animals, God gave us the one thing that would bring lasting holiness: His righteous, sinless, holy Son. His one, perfect life given for ours. His death for our sins. Once and for all.
Jesus, our Great High Priest, made the way for people of every nation, tribe, and tongue to be called children of God (1 John 3:1). We now belong to Christ, and we’re meant to live like Him. We who “look forward to [His] Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own” (v.3 MSG). We who put our hope in Christ purify ourselves as He is pure (v.3 ESV).
“For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.”
1 Thessalonians 4:7 NIV
My friends, when we seek to be holy, it is an intentional choice to live like Jesus – a choice to live holy.
All That Bloodshed
The largest impediment to our holy living is the “sin that so easily entangles” us as we set out to run the race God has marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1).1 We forget the call to persevere in this life of faith. We neglect to “throw off everything that hinders us” (v.1). Rather, we fall prey to the temptation of believing we’ve done all that’s required of us when we gave Jesus our big YES.
And we wouldn’t be the first.
It’s why the writer of Hebrews spends so much time explaining holiness and the way Jesus fulfills all the Old Testament laws. And once again we have a biblical author telling us to look to Jesus as the one to emulate, to “study how He did it” – because “He never lost sight” of the finish line, despite what He faced (v.2 MSG). We’re meant to know that…
“In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than [us], to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed!”
Hebrews 12:4 MSG
Yet the minute we let the sacrifice of Jesus retreat to the shadows of our minds, we forget how easily sin entangles us. Without ‘all that bloodshed’, we would have no chance of staying in the race. And so, as any successful runner would, we must train. With God as our Coach, we will be given the best running-shoes-on-the-ground education we could ever hope for – because He will train us as a good Father would (v.7).
So whether life throws obstacles at us, our own choices trip us up, or our Father ‘disciplines’ us, we stay focused on Jesus and persevere (v.7 MSG). When we endure our trials and hardships with Jesus, deep in our inner being we learn “to live God’s holy best” (v.10). We mature in our faith and our relationship with God (v.11).
Friends, we’ve been “redeemed from the empty way of life” by “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:17-18 NIV). And that means we don’t have to continue falling into the same bad habits and sin patterns. All of it has been paid for because Christ bore our sins on the cross. And, by way of that same shed blood, we have been given authority and power to rip off every entangling sin – to conquer those habits and patterns in our lives.2
Even as we fix our eyes on Jesus, God keeps His eye on us – “and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep [us] obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus” (1 Peter 1:2 MSG). With Jesus’ blood sprinkled on us and Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we can be sanctified a little more everyday (v.2 NIV). We can live holy.
Living Holy
Knowing how easy it is for us to resist the challenges and hardships along our ‘race’, the author of Hebrews lays out our bold call:
“Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”
Hebrews 12:14 BSB
The Greek term for ‘pursue’ is best understood as “intense effort and single-minded vigilance in the pursuit of something.”3 We can take from this deeper meaning that to pursue peace with people requires much of us. Peace doesn’t happen on its own or by avoidance. We have to put holy effort into it. Jesus told us that when we “work for peace,” we “will be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9, NLT). And He most certainly modeled this way of peace for us.
Yet, very often, the first thing that leaves our bodies and relationships in the hard times is peace. In those moments of lost peace, we give-in to the lies swirling in our minds, which in turn produce emotions that spiral (see Philippians 4:6-7). We lash out or hide. We do the opposite of pursuing peace because we’re living from our own flesh instead of Spirit-strength.
The ‘intense effort’ required for Jesus-like-peace won’t flow from our self-determination but from our Holy Spirit-reliance. He helps us “live in complete harmony with each other,” which is our mandate and blessing as followers of Jesus (Romans 15:5).
Peace is not the only thing we’re told to ‘make every effort’ for; we’re also meant to pursue holiness because without holiness, we will not see God (Hebrews 12:14) – not in our lives here on earth and certainly not in eternity. The Greek word for ‘holiness’ in this verse means sanctification, that process of being made holy. Therefore, our ‘holiness’ is the evidence of a consecrated, transformed life. The very fact that we’re being made holy is proof of our salvation.
This exhortation in Hebrews echoes Jesus’ teaching that the ‘pure in heart’ are blessed – “for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8) – and emphasizes that we are meant to “work at getting along with each other and with God” (Hebrews 12:14 MSG). Everything rides on holy living. Not because such effort earns our salvation but because a holy life is the visible fruit of inner sanctification.
Paul gives clarity on how we work toward “complete holiness;” we “cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit” (2 Corinthians 7:1, NLT). He tells us to…
“throw off your old sinful nature…which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.”
Ephesians 4:22-24 NLT
This effort we put into pursuing holiness doesn’t look like keeping rules or checking boxes; it’s not wearing ourselves out trying to do everything to prove ourselves (see Galatians 2:19 MSG). Rather, we release our striving and look to the One who shows us how to live.
We remember that Holy Spirit is our seal, marking us as ‘Holy to the Lord’ because of our faith in Christ. We also live convinced that we’re meant to “keep the words of [God’s] book” in our daily walk with Jesus (Revelation 22:9). With Jesus’ Spirit as our guide, we will persevere in our pursuit of peace and holiness.
The ‘Work’ of Holy
So then, what does it look like to “work at living a holy life” (Hebrews 12:14 NLT)?
Well, to read the whole of Hebrews twelve is to be shown that the pursuit of holiness is “communal, sustained through disciplines, fellowship, and corrective discipline.”4 To say it another way, we’re not meant to go it alone. The idea behind “iron sharpens iron” is that, together, we help to forge lives that are stronger in the Spirit, holier in Christ (see Proverbs 27:17).
To read the whole of Scripture is to witness the grace of God each time He sets out to forgive and redeem His people. From the beginning, His heart has always held a deep desire for us to know Him and to show love (Hosea 6:6 NLT). He continues to hope for our openness to His love and that our hearts would be repentant (Psalm 51:17).5 God’s heart for us remains unchanged, and that means He will be faithful to give us everything we need to run our race well.
So we shall spend the rest of this series delving into this idea of what it takes to live holy. We shall navigate ways to hold all that we know about holiness at one time – the effort and the empowerment, the purity and the perseverance, the glory and the grace. We’ll seek to avoid legalism so as not to make holiness a duty. Rather, we will run our race from love. We’ll pursue holiness with all the delight of children seeking to please their Daddy. We will lay down our striving and pick up Holy Spirit strength so that we can live holy.
Let’s pray:
“Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, [God] had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.” Then “by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for [us], Christ brought [us] over to God’s side and put [our] lives together, whole and holy in his presence.” We have been “presented as an acceptable offering to God, made whole and holy by God’s Holy Spirit.” And we’ve been made free to “live whole and holy, soul and body, so [we] can always walk with [our] heads held high.” Therefore, “May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it!” In Jesus’ holy name we pray, amen.
(inspired and [mostly] quoted from The Message, Ephesians 1:4; Colossians 1:22; Psalm 119:80; Romans 15:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – JD Walt, on the Wake Up Call on 8/28/26, spoke of sin with great clarity: “Sin, far beyond mere moral failure, describes the fundamentally broken condition of every human being. Sin separates us from God and others, distorts and destroys our deepest identity as the image-bearers of God, and poses a fatal problem from which we cannot save ourselves. It results in an ever-diminishing quality of life and ultimately ends in eternal death.”
- 2 – John Piper’s message/article “Christ Died to Make Us Holy”
- 3 – This GotQuestions article on living in peace with everyone (Hebrews 12:14)
- 4 – Biblehub for hagiasmos, the Greek word for holiness and sanctification
- 5 – The New Testament carries the same themes of God’s actual desire to have our love, our devotion. A relationship rather than a check-list. For examples, see Matthew 9:13, 22:37-38; Mark 12:30; John 14:23; 1 Corinthians 8:3; Hebrews 10:5-6.
- The opening song on our new Spotify playlist, Pursue Holiness is called “Whole & Holy,” which is a great play on words, a nod to Eugene Peterson’s use of these words in The Message paraphrase of Scripture, and a beautiful piece about the work holiness. I hope you’ll take a listen.
- My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
- Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.
- As we progress in this fall series, we’ll be talking more and more about the rhythms we can engage in as the ‘means of grace’. Such rhythms are not tools to earn grace or holiness; rather, they’re active disciplines we enter into with Holy Spirit; they’re ways or places we can be transformed by God’s holiness.. Very simply, the ‘means of grace’ are outward practices we employ in order to be more fully shaped by God’s life; in other words, they are the ‘means’ to being and living holy.
One ‘means of grace’ is Holy Communion, which seems an appropriate practice to seek out and participate in this week since it represents the shedding of Christ’s blood, the sacrifice of His body for us. May we not only generally remember these truths as we partake but also enter into it personally, asking Holy Spirit to open our spiritual eyes to better take-in what it is Jesus has done for us. May we feel the sprinkling of His blood afresh and receive the redemption He paid for. Then may we step into our everyday lives with a holy mindset, ready to live more like Him by the grace He gives.
- We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!
Featured Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash
“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Victoria Soldaska on Unsplash.
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