What are your goals for your life? Do you desire to be wealthy? Faithful in your relationships? Happy? A good parent? A productive worker? Retired? Goals are like turns that show up on your GPS. As you approach an exit or turn, your GPS will show you which lane to be in so that your merge is smooth and effortless. If only turns and lane changes in life were as easy!

If we consider God’s goal for our lives as opposed to our own, we might be surprised to learn what direction he prefers for us. While our goals might be worthy, God wants so much more for us.

He wants us to be holy.

Leviticus 19 (New Revised Standard Version)

² “Speak to all the congregation of the Israelites and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Does that scare you a little? To be holy seems like an impossible goal. What does it mean to be holy? According to Webster’s dictionary, Holy means “Spiritually perfect or pure; untainted by evil or sin; sinless; saintly.” I can promise you this, God loves us too much to expect that of us. He would not want to set us up for failure! No, that definition relates to Jesus alone. So what else could holy mean?

¹⁵ “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. ¹⁶ You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by when the blood^[a] of your neighbor is at stake: I am the Lord.

This sounds a little more doable. To be just, to treat people equally, to not gossip and spread lies about our neighbors, and to help when someone is in trouble … if that’s holy, we have a chance. Indeed, it fits an alternate definition from Webster: Dedicated to religious use; belonging to or coming from God; consecrated; sacred. It gives us hope to think that we might be useful to God. It speaks to the truth of our belonging to God and our coming from God. Further, we understand the word consecrated to mean “dedicated to God”, and the word sacred to mean “set apart.” Christians are indeed set apart from the rest of the world to do the work of our Lord.

¹⁷ “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. ¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the gold standard for holiness. I think if we can learn to do that, we indeed will be holy.

O Holy Night by Michelle Robertson