A good Christian must strive more for holiness than for fame, fortune or material happiness. Holiness comes from God and, as such, before applying it in one's life, it is necessary to understand divine holiness. Even after you fully understand what it is, striving for holiness will still require self-discipline and dedication throughout life.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Part One: Understanding God's Holiness
Step 1. Observe the absolute perfection of God
God is perfect in every possible way: perfect in love, in mercy, in anger, in justice and so on. This perfection is directly related to God's holiness.
- God is without temptation and without sin. As James 1:13 points out, "God cannot be tempted to evil and tempts no one to evil."
- The things God does and desires do not always make sense from a human point of view, but being a believer means trusting that God's actions, orders, and desires are all perfect, even when they cannot be understood.
Step 2. Consider holiness as God's character
God is holy, but at the same time he is the very definition of holiness. There is nothing or no one holier than Him and holiness is fully incarnated in God.
- God is different from anyone else and His holiness is at the root of everything else.
- Humanity can never be exactly as holy as God, but man must try to imitate His holiness, since humans were created in the likeness of God.
Step 3. Reflect on the divine command to strive for holiness
Striving for holiness in life is something God has commanded you to do as a believer. This task may seem overwhelming to you, but you should take comfort in the knowledge that God will never ask you and will never expect you to do something you cannot do. Therefore, holiness is within your reach.
- In Leviticus 11:44, God states, "For I am the Lord, your God. Sanctify yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy."
- Later, in the first letter of Peter 1:16, God reiterates: "You will be holy, because I am holy.".
- By understanding how God works in your life, you can practice trusting Him and never giving up on the hope of heaven. This kind of hope offers you an anchor, thanks to which you can hold on to God's truth as you seek holiness.
Method 2 of 2: Part Two: Strive for Sanctity in Life
Step 1. Belong to God and thirst for holiness
True holiness will only come once you have given your entire life to God. In this way, you will recognize how much hunger for holiness you have had in the past and how much you still have today.
- To belong to God, you have to "be born again". In other words, you must accept Christ and let the work of the Holy Spirit affect your life.
- Before you can have a true "thirst" for holiness, you need to understand why it is important for you to act as God wills. God doesn't ask you for something just to test you. Instead, he wants what is best for your eternal salvation, and the orders he commands you are based on this principle.
- Although humanity naturally thirsts for holiness, the world offers so many distractions that the appetite for holiness is often harmed. However, the distractions of the world can never provide you with the spiritual nourishment that the soul needs.
Step 2. Prepare your mind and heart
While it is possible, achieving holiness is not that easy. If you want to have any hope of accomplishing this task, you must devote your mind and heart to this practice.
- In the first letter of Peter 1: 13-14, the believer is instructed to "gird up the loins of the mind." Translated into other words, it would mean "preparing the mind for action".
- Preparing the mind for action means making a clear and determined effort to forsake sin and follow God by virtue of holiness.
- You will have an infinity of external influences that will try to seduce you. If you do not fix your mind on a clear and precise goal, you will be more likely to leave the path along which you will have to walk a long time to reach it.
Step 3. Avoid moralism
Often, many people get the wrong idea of holiness and think they can achieve it simply by following a strict set of rules. Norms and rituals have their place, but when you start to worry more about appearing holy than being holy, you will enter the realm of moralism.
- For example, if you pray in public for the sake of being seen by other people, your attitude towards prayer is not as healthy as it should be. You can certainly pray in public if the situation calls for it, but when you do, you need prayer to communicate with God.
- There is nothing wrong with being seen as a spiritual or religious person, but this consideration has to happen naturally. You have to give up the desire to appear holy in the eyes of others. If people will continue to perceive you this way, then there is nothing wrong with it, but there is no guarantee that the people around you will perceive your desire for holiness.
Step 4. Stand out
As already noted, God's law plays a certain role in achieving holiness. God commands his faithful to differentiate themselves from the sin of the world. This does not mean that you must detach yourself from the secular world, but you must follow God's law even when you receive criticism.
- In Leviticus 20:26, God explains: "You will be holy to me, for I, the Lord, am holy and have separated you from the other peoples, to be mine."
- In essence, being "separated" from other people means leaving the materialism of the world behind. You must separate yourself from influences that do not come from God.
- You understand that there is no need to take refuge in a monastery or convent to get away from materialism. You exist in the world and, if God hadn't wanted you to be here, He wouldn't have put you in this reality.
Step 5. Check yourself
You can never escape temptation, even if you start practicing holiness in your life. However, when you face temptation, to keep your sanctity you will need to control the noxious desire to give in to its blows.
- Temptation is not always present in concrete forms. It's pretty easy to resist the temptation to steal something in stores or physically hurt someone that makes you angry. It is much more difficult, however, to resist temptations that take deeper roots, such as greed and hatred.
- To control yourself, you need to do more than just avoid indulging in the most obvious sins. You must protect yourself from character weaknesses that risk distracting you from God, such as pride, envy, greed, hatred, laziness, gluttony, and lust.
Step 6. Don't tolerate sin
Mostly it means rejecting sin in one's life. However, not tolerating sin also means rejecting it in the world around you. Regardless of how much you may love someone, when a person has sinned, you must not try to justify him or accept sinful action.
- Words like "intolerance" and "judgment" are often spoken with little attention and used as criticism, but the concepts they refer to are not negative. After all, few would say that it is a bad thing not to tolerate hatred or criticize the safety or danger of something. The mistake lies not in the intolerance itself, but in the way it is committed.
- Don't tolerate sin, but don't use intolerance as a justification for hating others. God is all that is good, and love is good above all.
- At the same time, you must not allow the love and sympathy you feel for others to blind you and bring you closer to sin. You cannot judge or control the hearts of others, but you must not accept the sins of others, as doing so will ruin the purity of your heart.
Step 7. Mortify yourself, but love who you are
To mortify means to give up any desire that is not of God. That said, God created you to be the person you are, so there is no need to despise your existence. If anything, you need to love yourself the same way God loves you before you can get close to God's holiness.
- God created you as you are, which means you are beautiful as you are. Your beauty includes all the difficulties, weaknesses and mistakes made in the past.
- Even if you are beautiful the way you are, you must also recognize your difficulties and weaknesses for what they are. To strive for holiness means to commit oneself to abandoning vices for the love of God.
Step 8. Consider some catalysts in your daily habits
Some spiritual practices can serve as catalysts to move you to live a life of holiness and richness of the spirit. It is not always necessary to use these means to strive for holiness, but when you use them they can actually guide you towards your goal.
- For example, if you want to strive for holiness about the way you view food, you could try fasting for a day or even half a day.
- In some cases, holiness in a certain area of life cannot be achieved without using certain catalysts, even if the latter do not in themselves constitute holiness. For example, you will need to love and submit to your spouse to have a holy marriage and love your enemies to build holiness relationships.
Step 9. Pray for holiness
Achieving holiness is a difficult task that cannot be accomplished in the absence of God. Prayer is a powerful resource, one of the most powerful tools available to the believer, so praying regularly to achieve holiness can help make you become and remain. holier.
- Your prayers don't have to be long, extravagant, or grandiloquent. Something simple will do, as long as the prayer comes from the heart.
- For example, you might say something like "God, make me thirst for holiness more than material goods and make me holy in every aspect of my character and in my actions."
