Lev 11:45 "For I am the LORD, ...; thus you shall be holy for I am holy."

The more you study God's holiness, and His holiness standard for us, and the more you journey into it, the more you will be horrified at your exceeding sinfulness. This new view of sin will spur you on toward new maturity levels of practical holiness.

A clear understanding of what you could be and should be will leave you with a haunting dissatisfaction with what you are. At the same time, we begin to appreciate more and more the grace given to us by our holy God.

Have you ever accepted God's holy standard for your life? God has a standard for you and His standard is holiness. His purpose for you is that you present yourself as a Spirit-led sacrifice. God commits Himself and all that He is to you as you commit to Him with a willingness to be holy. This is significant. He does not expect perfection, but He wants to see the willingness to seek and practice holiness. If you desire Holy God to commit Himself to you, you must not come to Him with only a partial yielding. Only as you desire to be holy does He build holiness in you.

There will never be practical holiness in your life until you conscientiously, time-consumingly, pragmatically and repentantly deal with the old sinful person.

The evidences of a lack of holiness, of sin, are diverse and extensive. For the many Christians who feel they are doing fine and who are hard to convince of their need of repentance here listed are a few evidences of unholiness:

• Disobedience
  
• Complaining or whining
  
• Impatience
  
• Bragging
  
• Dishonoring God
  
• Bitterness
  
• Love of money
  
• Not seeking fellowship with believers
  
• Sowing divisions or discord
  
• Lack of respect for authority
  
• Ingratitude
  
• Ignoring or disrespecting God's servants
  
• Idolatry or misplaced passions
  
• Deception in words or tone
  
• Not seeking God's will
  
• Fear of man
  
• Evil-speech
  
• Watching sinful movies or images
  
• Lust
  
• Impure mediations
  
• Silence
  
• Lukewarm towards the things of God
  
• No backbone
  
• Irresponsibility
  
• Lack of convictions
  
• Laziness
  
• Ignoring the Bible
  
• Cheating
  
• Lack of brotherly love
  
• Jealousy
  
• Withholding help to needy, sick, etc.
  
• Prayerlessness
  
• Greedy
  
• Robbing God of tithes/offerings
  
• Gambling
  
• No servant's heart
  
• Misusing drugs
  
• Unforgivingness
  
• Unhealthy eating habits
  
• Failure to praise God
  
• Smoking
  
• Pride
  
• Dishonoring women
  
• Unteachable
  
• Does not apologize
  
• Unholy ambitions
  
• Bad temper
  
• Mocking / making fun of others
  
• Not hating sin
  
• Not evangelizing
  
• Revengeful
  
• Lack of love and care for every person
  
• Not prepared to defend your faith
  
• Refusing the Lordship of Christ
  
• Critical
  
• Focus on self
  
• Adultery
  
• Quick to find fault in others
  
• Little thought to the return of Christ
  
• Homosexuality
  
• Allowing sinful strongholds
  
• Drunkenness
  
• Love for the world
  
• Little time with God
  
• Over-indulgence / lack of temperance
  
• Yielding to peer pressure
  
• More excitement from money than God
  
• Gossip
  
• Love for praise of men
  
• Secret sins
  
• Procrastination
  
• Don't focus on others
  
• Lack of faith
  
• Witchcraft / fortune telling / astrology
  
• Disbelief in God's promises
  
• Lack of self examination for sin
  
• Lack of focus on holiness
  

These are a few sins for inventory purposes. Get into the Word of God for further revelation of sin, which is the hindrance to holiness in our lives.

The common reaction to such a list of sins is rationalizing and refusing to be honest. If while skimming this list, is your heart arrested in pain, as you start to see yourself as God does without Christ, or do you just casually say, "Who is perfect? And I'm a good person, I don't hurt people."

No sin is small. No sin is harmless. There is always a consequence to sin, even when you don't see it. Every sin, large or small, will have a negative affect. See these effects of sin in your life.

• Sin stops your spiritual growth.
  
• Sin steals your joy.
  
• Sin stagnates your creativity.
  
• Sin sacrifices your loved ones.
  
• Sin lifts up Satan.
  
• Sin shames the Lord Jesus Christ.
  
• Sin sends people to hell.
  
• Sin seals your lips rendering you cowardly silent.
  
• Sin separates you from the fellowship of other Christians.
  
• Sin spoils your fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
  
• Sin surrenders your influence.
  
• Sin side-steps God's will for your life.
  
• Sin sabotages your mind.
  
• Sin shuts off your supply line from God.
  
• Sin sours your spirit.
  
• Sin sickens your body (it may leave you physically disabled or troubled).
  
• Sin soils your life and makes it ugly.
  
• Sin soils your speech.
  
• Sin saddens your countenance.
  
• Sin stings your conscience and hardens your heart.
  
• Sin sells you into slavery.
  
• Sin silences your heart's song.
  
• Sin shuts your eyes to the effects of evil around you.
  
• Sin sentences you to an early death.
  
• Sin says you really love self more than you love Jesus.
  

If you would be holy what must you do with your sin?

• You must see your sin as God sees your sin.
  
• You must openly acknowledge your sin.
  
• You must identify your specific sin areas.
  
• You must willfully choose against your sin.
  
• You must repent of and forsake your sins.
  
• You must ask for and accept God's forgiveness.
  
• You must take a stand against your sin.
  

When you dare deal with your sin according to Scripture, the Lord forgives you, cleanses you, covers your sin with His blood, puts your sin behind His back, and He never again holds this sin against you. He releases you from the guilt of sin. Yet, we are not released from the consequences of sin.

To conquer sin, the indwelling Spirit energizes you with supernatural power, and defeats Satan on the battleground of your heart. The Spirit generates new daily strength for oncoming temptation, and provides for you the mind of holiness. The Spirit quickens your consciousness against sin, and is your only source of holiness.

• When you sin Satan sees you and is pleased.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as a defeated foe.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as his evil inroad into the lives of friends, loved ones, etc.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as his pawn.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as one to torment and disgrace.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as a deterrent against the lost being saved and against possible revival in the churches.
  
• When you sin Satan sees you as a fool and laughs at you.
  

The church is people. Unholy people make an unholy church. The unholy church is a reproach to our Holy God and is powerless to change our godless society. Never before has the church been more needed and seldom has she been so ineffective. Today's church is backsliding into the final dark ages of human history.

In days like today profession is inadequate. All our acting religiously, feeling religiously, and talking religiously is stench from the dunghill of our sinful decadence. Men claim holiness but their verbiage is empty in light of their lifelessness. Show me a person who claims holiness but who refuses to be salt and light and I will show you a disgrace to grace.

Holiness does not strut, for strutting denotes haughtiness, but holiness does STAND and does SPEAK OUT. The very essence of salt is holiness. The very origin of light is holiness. The power behind the gospel proclamation is holiness.

Not even our deepest thinkers can calculate the multiplied misery heaped upon the human race while the church argued over incidentals, mused over the mundane, jockeyed for clerical prestige, gloried in its gold, ran roughshod over its parishioners, brought worldliness into its sanctuaries, made sacrilege of the sacraments, played games with tyrants, committed adultery with the perverts of humanism, denying the power and the glory of their Lord, and walked piously into the jaws of judgment.

We must have revival, a revival of holiness, something most believers live and die without ever seeing. We do not need a revival of activity, which is nothing more than empty headed dancing with the fool-hearted to the tune of the devil's fiddle, while nations burn and the remnant face hungry lions to the applause of self-condemned fools.

We must humble ourselves, admit the depth of our own sin, and seek, even yearn for, the holiness that God wants in our lives. If we will seek His holiness more than we might seek riches, God will know, and God will bless. We know what God wants for us - to be holy as He is holy. God, build in us a passion for holiness, and guide us towards your holiness.

(Many of the ideas in this article came from a book lost long ago. We would like to give credit if we could.