How We Can Attain a Holy Life (Rewritten)

In our previous post, we explored an important idea: the deepest and most meaningful expressions of spiritual life — those moments when the barriers between God and the human soul seem to fall away — are inseparably linked to holiness of heart. If that’s true, then the next natural question is an urgent one: How do we actually become holy?

How do we move from weak faith to confident faith, from inconsistent love to a love that is whole and mature? How do we experience what Scripture often calls entire sanctification?

In response, we suggest that three essential elements are involved—always in partnership with the work of the Holy Spirit. Without these, holiness will remain more of a theory than a lived reality.

A Fixed Determination to Belong to God

We often speak of desiring or wishing to be the Lord's; but there is not much ground for supposing that there is any considerable degree of sincerity or strength in such desires, if they stop short of a fixed determination or resolve to be his.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXIV.