Leviticus 19:2 Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am
Per the Miriam-Webster dictionary, to be holy means: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness, devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity and having a divine quality.
My personal definition of holy is two-fold. For God, it is the complete definition. For us, it’s everything except the being exalted and worthy of devotion. At least not in the same sense as God. For us to be truly holy, I think that we should be as Jesus Christ and give all glory and exaltation to God. We shouldn’t do good deeds and be good people so that other people will hold us in high esteem. We should be Christlike because it is the right thing to do.
In an article by Adam C. Olson from the June 2008 Ensign titled Making Time to be Holy, he tells of steps we can take to be more holy through sanctification.
- Faith – having faith in Jesus Christ is the first step in becoming more like Him
- Study – in order to be more like Jesus Christ, we need to know more about Him, the way He was and what He teaches
- Sacrifice – we must be willing to give up our own will and desires to follow the will of the Lord
- Obedience – by following the commandments, we become more like the Savior
- Atonement – only by use of the Atonement will we ever truly be holy
In a talk by Wendy Watson Nelson during the January 2010 BYU-Idaho women’s meeting, she talks of an experiment she conducted by asking a group of women to pick one task and for several days try to make doing that one task more holy. I thought it was an interesting experiment. She said one of the participants said she pictured Jesus Christ in the room with her while doing the task and that it helped her have patience and a different perspective on how to handle the situation. I’ve thought about that and realized that by utilizing the same methodology, we can all become a bit more holy if we imagine the Savior being with us every step of our day. Granted, He’s already there with us in all we do, but it’s a little different when we imagine Him being physically there. Definitely makes you rethink how you would be doing something or how you would be speaking to someone.
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