When people think of striving for Christian holiness, it seems there may be some intimidation. "It's not for me...I'll never be a saint...Maybe for some people..." Some may think that being holy means you will end up thinking, "I am better than you" or develop a "holier than thou" attitude. This is not holiness, it's pride and arrogance. Perhaps these very thoughts have crossed your mind.
Yet, as Christians, to not strive for holiness is to live beneath our calling and our dignity because that is exactly what God expects of us and it is exactly what He made us for!
"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." [Matthew 5:48]
*(Perfect here means to be perfect in virtue of love and reach the full development of the Christian virtues; it does not mean to never make a mistake or to excel and achieve success in worldly things)
"...but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, 'Be holy because I [am] holy.'" [1 Peter 1:15]
"...to be pure as He is pure." [cf. 1 John 3:3]
"...He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ." [Ephesians 1:4-5]
"Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." [James 1:2-4]
I'm sure that's enough Scriptural proof of our calling!
Yes, as Christians, our calling is lofty...but it is not impossible, for...
"...nothing will be impossible with God." [Luke 1:37]
Holiness is simply being filled with God, "be filled with the Spirit," so that it is "no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." [cf. Eph 5:18; Gal 2:20]
Wow! Think about that for a moment: The Lord wants us to be filled with the utter fullness of Himself! It is possible in as much as we shed the muck of sin and our habits of sin while seeking union and a deeper relationship with Him to become "transformed from one degree of glory to the next, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord." [cf. 2 Cor 3:18]
Look...the saints, and, if you've ever been in the presence of holy people, are joyful, beautiful souls; they radiate such a light and peace about them that we can't quite articulate it but yet we are very much drawn to it.
Yet our pursuit of holiness doesn't often (very often!) start out this way, does it?
We are intimidated and we fall more times than we'd like to count. We make excuses and we look a lot at...ourselves...and our sinfulness and just how very far we are from saintliness. (Now, to be clear, the realization and sorrow and guilt we experience from our sins are surely the sign of a healthy and alive conscience. These things are good! Yet when it becomes excessive and leads us to despair of God's mercy and it damages our confidence in His grace, then it becomes destructive to our spiritual growth. Keep also in mind that the enemy of our soul, the devil, likes to work through ultimatums: "I'll never..." or "It's impossible...")
So, as we draw to the end of this Christmas season, let me direct you to the humble, poor, dirty, smelly stable into which our Lord was born and let us realize this non-aesthetically pleasing place was precisely the place in which our Lord preferred to be born. This dirty animal stable was precisely where our Lord wanted to begin His work of redemption and sanctification. He could have been born anywhere else in any other way, especially more fit for a King! ...But He chose this.
Yes, in the filth of each of our souls, stained and sullied by our sins, wounds, and issues, the Lord is pleased to begin His work of redemption, healing and sanctification. It's not about having yourself all together before we set about pursuing the call to holiness but rather it's about letting God put you together and make you whole in the process of it.
So realize and respond (oh yes, please respond!) to your call to holiness and perfection in love; see how Christ preferred to begin His work of redemption on earth in a humble, poor, obscure and filthy stable. Now, believe that Christ is pleased to begin His work of redemption in you, now.
...So what are you waiting for?