October 25, 2026

Imagine if in order to graduate high school you had to run a 5k in under 12 minutes. So you want to graduate high school and you’ve been training every day and you get to your graduation day but have to finish the run. You take off and you’re feeling good you do the best you ever have and finish 5 k in 13 minutes. Sorry you’ll have to get faster is all the principal says. You would respond but I can’t do it, I am working as hard as I can but there is no way I’m going to take another second off my time let alone a whole minute.

One of the things we are called to repeatedly in scripture is Holiness 

Holy implies sacredness, being consecrated to God or being worthy of God. A person or thing would have to be free from impurity, with no hint of moral pollution or spiritual defilement. To be Holy is to be free from anything that would offend a perfect God. To even contemplate a perfect Holy God is for us to use words we don’t fully grasp but yet God calls us to Holiness 

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. (I Thess 4:7)

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. I Pet 2:9

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God II Cor 7:1

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” I Pet 1:14-16

WE are absolutely called to be holy but we look at these passages and become disheartened because we can’t do it.

It’s true that you on your own cannot be Holy But there are some things you can do:

Remember that you have been redeemed 1 Pet 1:13-25

Focus on knowing and following Jesus Rom 8:29

See the world as in need of compassion instead of full of challenges Mat 9:36

Most of all remember that it is God who makes you Holy, it is not something you can achieve but rather something you must try to reflect as you grow in Christ Likeness Rom 3:21-26.

~ Kevin Cleary