“You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.”

We live in God’s world, not our world. We live on His terms, not our terms. We must do what He wants, not what we want. But what does God want? He wants us to be holy. He wants us to live life the way He intended it to be lived in the beginning.

But why? God wants us to be holy because we have been created in His image, and He is holy. God is not considered holy simply because He has met a standard to which He must be obedient, but because He is the source of holiness and the standard of goodness.

God’s command that we should be holy is not a command that was limited to Old Testament times. It is a command for the ages. Jesus said, “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect,” (Matthew 5:48). And the Apostle Peter said, “But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy,'” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

There is a problem, however. We are fallen creatures that are incapable of meeting the standard, incapable of obeying the command. Isaiah said, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind,” (Isaiah 64:6). If being holy depended on us, we would die in our sins (John 8:24).

God, in His great mercy, has a solution to the problem. He has provided a way for us to meet the standard. God sent Jesus Christ, who never sinned and was perfectly holy, “to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ,” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In Christ, we can begin to live life the way God intended from the beginning.

By John Huisman, friend of Bible League International