It is the will of God that makes people holy. It was Jesus Christ who told His disciples that He prayed to God saying, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as in Heaven" (Matthew 6:10). This reflected Christ's attitude, nature, and position in relation to His Father in Heaven. He showed this also in Gethsemane where "He fell on His face and prayed … let it be as you, not I, would have it" (Matthew 26:39). Christ's holiness was manifest in His commitment (unto death) to His Father's will.

Jesus knew that our very survival depends on doing God's will. He told a disciple, who was concerned that He did not put enough food in His body to sustain it, "My food is to do the will of the One who sent me, and to complete His work" (John 4:34). And of course Jesus did continually set about the will of His Father. He saw an imperative about doing this - an urgency of sort. This was apparent in His statement, As long as day lasts, we must carry out the work of the One who sent Me; the night will soon be here when no one can work" (John 9:4). Day and night were symbolic of life and death for Jesus. If you are alive, you must be about the Father's will (work). He said to the Pharisees, who felt He was not holy, "If I am not doing my Father's work [will], there is no need to believe Me" (John 10:37). In fact, Jesus did His Father's will so completely that He was a personification of His Father in His work (John 14:10).

Jesus had a definite sense of purpose, founded in doing His Father's will. He said, "I have come from Heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38). If only we could understand, in this rights-oriented society, as Jesus did, that God created us and sent us here with the express purpose of doing His work. Even as Christians, we tend to get our priorities mixed up, when it comes to our purpose for existing here. It would behoove us to comprehend and personalize what Jesus had to tell his disciples, "By Myself, I can do nothing … I seek to do not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 5:30). Daniel was awaken to the fact that "All who dwell on the earth count for nothing" (Daniel 4:32) next to what God chooses to do. He does what He wants and we do not dare ask Him, "What have you done?

"If you want to be holy, upright, and in good standing with God, just continue to do His will. Jesus Christ is our living example of this principle. God was so pleased with Jesus, in this, that He crowned Him the head of all creation. The Scripture tells us that "He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first born of all creation, for in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth … all things were created through Him," and here's the key, "…and FOR Him" (Colossians 1:16). This is God's will.. If we want to be in God's holy purpose, we must be in Christ.

There is perhaps no substitute for the Word of God for explaining about God and His divine nature. That is why I have chosen here to quote a passage on living in holiness and charity.

"Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus. We instructed you how to live in the way that pleases God, and you are so living, but make more progress still. We are well aware of instructions we gave on the authority of the Lord Jesus.

"God wills you all to be holy. He wants you to keep away from sexual immorality, and each one of you to know how to control his body in a way that is holy and honorable, not giving way to selfish lust like the nations that do not acknowledge God. He wants nobody at all ever to sin by taking advantage of a brother in these matters; the Lord always pays back sins of that sort, as we told you before empathetically. God calls us to be holy, not to be immoral. In other words, anyone who rejects this is rejecting not human authority, but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit" (I Thessalonians 4:1-8).

So, it is the will of God that makes people holy (Matthew 6:10). He does this through the Holy Spirit and by faith in the truth (II Thessalonians 2:13; Ephesians 1:4). The entire trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is involved in making us holy. God makes us holy, in our spirit, life, and body, and keeps us blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is trustworthy, having called us, and will carry this process of sanctification out to its completion (I Thessalonians 5:23-24). Our part in this is to "…see [ourselves] as being dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). Jesus prayed for us that God would "…consecrate [those He sent] in the truth, " which is His Word (John 17:17). His Word is said to have power in itself to build a new person of those being sanctified in Christ (Acts 20:32). Christ has, in effect and in fact, made Himself our holiness. Though man's intentions are unholy when compared to God's will and purpose, a man's life becomes holy in Jesus Christ who was made holiness for our sake (I Corinthians 1:30). God employs His Spirit to make a man holy (I Thessalonians 4:8).

It was very common knowledge that people referred to followers of Christ as "the holy ones" (Acts 9:13). Since God is the Holy One par excellence (Isaiah 6:3), those consecrated to His service are called "holy" (Leviticus 17:1). Holiness is one of the essential attributes of the God of Israel. This is made evident where God speaks and says to is people, "You have become sanctified and have become holy, because I am holy … you must therefore be holy, because I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44-45). Scripture makes it obvious that God's intention for His people is to make them holy through consecration and the effective, albeit, slow process of sanctification (see Leviticus 19:2; 20:7,26; 21:8; 22:32). The original concept of holiness through these life changes is one of separateness, of inaccessibility and of awe-inspiring transcendence. Anyone who remains alive after seeing God is overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude (Genesis 32:31; Deuteronomy 5:24) and with awe (Judges 6:22-23; 13:22; Isaiah 6:5). This is sanctity that communicates itself to everything in God's vicinity (that He touches) and to anything consecrated to Him.

The act of consecration involves a person's willful decision to be set apart from the sinful life, lusts, and deceptions of his fleshly life to be made holy by God. The person must become dedicated to God's will and give up his own. He must give up his own purpose and work toward God's and in His service. This frees the person to enter into sanctification, by God's Spirit, that begins a wonderful process of change whereby God changes the inner person to be more and more like Jesus Christ. From this process comes spiritual growth and special discernment that can only be provided by God. This is a time when God puts all claims on the individual and seals and forms an inner bond with him (Ephesians 1:13).