Holiness often doesn't look like what we would expect. Real holiness doesn't result in pride or an aloof sense of superiority - rather the more holy a man or woman is the more they will recognize and confess their own unholiness. And this holiness is grounded in the person's love for and adoration of God and is continually nourished and built up by the common means of grace God has given his people.

Well What would a holy man or woman look like? I think that first of all a holy man or holy woman would tell you how unholy they are Holiness is like humility the more you have of it the less you think you have I had a mother who was a great prayer warrior. She prayed about two hours a day and just envied her prayer life. When I asked her when she was 80 years old if she could live her life all over again, what would she do differently? She said, oh honey, I'd pray a lot more.

And I think a holy person is like that. He grieves over how unholy he is. I think Paul has been very holy in his groanings in Romans 7. That's the first thing. Secondly, I think a holy man or a holy woman has a very sensitized conscience to sin, not out of a legalistic motive, but because he loves Jesus Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit so much.

A holy man or a holy woman is one who has distinct communion with the three persons of the Trinity as well as with the Godhead as a whole and learns to say with Samuel Rutherford, I don't know which divine person I love the most, but this I know I love each of them and I need them all. So holiness is Trinitarian in its object. And then thirdly, I think a holy man or a holy woman is someone who realizes that because of their own weakness to sin, their own proneness to backslide, they need to stay in the means of grace and use them conscientiously every day.