Personal holiness...

What is it? Personal holiness.

I believe it's fairly self-expalanatory--it is the effect of holiness as reflected in my personal life.

It doesn't sound like a bad thing, does it? I want to reflect holiness. In my personal life.

However, I would challenge you that "personal holiness" is often negatively practiced and produces poor results. "Why?" you might ask. I would argue: because many religions attest to (and almost deify) personal holiness. To all of the "things" we must "do" in order to experience nirvana, heaven, freedom from this body/emotions/thoughts, etc.

Christianity is supposed to be different. I am not supposed to be consumed by my personal holiness. I am not supposed to say, "well I don't do this and this and this, thus I am a Christian."

Rather, we should take the example of Paul. "Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God" (Oswald Chambers Jan.31).

When we first accept Jesus, we recognize that we are not worthy to begin with. So why do we allow thoughts of personal holiness to consume our thinking as we try to act Christian from that day forward? "Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God." Ouch. Christianity is not about self-fulfilled personal holiness. Holiness results from an intimate relationship with a Person, not a cause.

Why try so hard to fit in when we're not of the same breed anyways--not because of anything we did, but because of Who gave life to us?