Holiness for the Christian means being like Jesus. It means being pure in heart, humble, repentant, loving, faithful, zealous for God and God's will, honest, truthful, joyful, peaceful, patient, gracious, generous, wise, discreet, self-controlled and lots more.
It is the devil's work to give negative connotations to the word holiness. Perhaps some of these arise from our own sense of not measuring up, or from an inner lawlessness or rebellion we secretly cherish. We may feel that our personal fulfillment depends on satisfying certain unholy desires, and we resent God's commands for this reason. In any case, holiness is still good. Everything we need to be satisfied is in Jesus. But there is a greater thing than this for us. It is to satisfy and please God.
Here then are some important Scriptures on the subject.
"Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14)
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)
"as children of obedience, not conforming yourselves according to your former lusts as in your ignorance, but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy; for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)
"Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you; and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you, to the end he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints." (1 Thessalonians 3:11-13)
"For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness." (Hebrews 12:10)
(Note that being a partaker of God's holiness is eternal profit to us!)
"and put on the new man, who
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