Today in the One Year Bible, we read from 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:7. Paul tells us to be holy. "Let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God." And that's great advice. God told us in another verse to "be holy, because I AM holy."
But what does that look like? When we think of holiness, it's easy to fall into a trap of thinking of being super concerned about our own purity. That we should, as Paul mentions in this passage, not be "unequally yoked" with unbelievers. And we're tempted to take that to an extreme, and never associate with sinners at all (forgetting for the moment that we ourselves are sinners).
However, we have a great example to look to. God Himself is as holy as it gets. You can't GET holier than God. He's perfectly holy. And if "worrying about how pure you are" is what holiness means, then God would want NOTHING to do with us sinners, right? But is that how He acts?
It is not.
God loves us. And when we seriously pursue the kind of holiness that He calls us to, it means loving people the way He did. It means forgetting about how humble or perfect we ourselves are, because we're not so much thinking about ourselves anymore, we're focused on loving other people.
God is perfectly holy. And God IS love. When we remember those two facts, it helps us see what we need to do in order to be holy.
Love.
God, thanks for teaching us what holiness means. Help us love You and Your children the way You do.
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