What Does It Mean to Be Holy?

My online dictionary defines a holy person as "one who is specially recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated: holy ground. Additional definitions include:

- recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated: holy ground. 
- dedicated or devoted to the service of God, the church, or religion: a holy man. 
- saintly; godly; pious; devout: a holy life. 
- having a spiritually pure quality: a holy love. 
- entitled to worship or veneration as or as if sacred: a holy relic. 
- religious: holy rites. 
- inspiring fear, awe, or grave distress: The director, when angry, is a holy terror. 
- a place of worship; sacred place; sanctuary.

Some of these sound to out of reach, like I would never be able to attain them. I have a hard time seeing myself as a "godly, pious saint." How can I be holy in my every-day life? How can I be the kind of person that God deems safe to save?

Eugene Peterson describes holiness in a way I can better relate to:

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

---Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

I can only be holy if God makes me so. And I can only choose to let him do it if he blesses me with the gift of his grace and a desire to be made whole. It all comes from him. My choosing and following, and his doing.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." -- Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)

Photo by Alex Hinds