Holy Need for Holiness, Batman!

Readings this week:
Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8.
Leviticus 18:4-5.
Leviticus 19:3-4, 11-20, 28-31; 20:10, 13.

Holiness in the world today.  Now there's a topic.  At first glance, I think it would be a concept laughable.  However, there are new temples announced every 6 months.  Temples which display the words "Holiness to the Lord" right on the front of the building.  Surely that indicates that there is holiness here on earth.

We become holy through sanctification.  What does it mean to be sanctified?  (You can't answer, "being holy!")  The guide to the scriptures on the lds.org website defines sanctification as "The process of becoming free from sin, pure, clean, and holy through the atonement of Jesus Christ."  I love this definition!  

Not only are we able to become holy, but we are able to simply because of the Lord, Jesus Christ!  What a gift!  But is that it?  He gave us this gift and poof! we are holy? Not quite.  That whole part about being free from sin is the part that hinges on us.  Yes, He can help remove our mistakes and we can be free from sin through the Atonement, but it is our responsibility to try as hard as we can to avoid the sin.  Like the old adage: Pray as if it were all up to God, and work like it was all up to you.

Some might argue that it doesn't matter whether or not the world has holiness in it anymore. I firmly believe that when someone says that, it is simply because they just do not understand the true meaning or value of holiness.  In our city over the past 6 months, we have had a mass shooting, a man who killed his mother and stuffed her dead body in the back of his car, and a little girl who was not only abducted and killed, but also dismembered by another child (17 years old). 

Tell me we don't have a need for holiness. 

Those are just the social needs.  I'm not even bringing up our personal need for holiness in order to return to the presence of God after this life.  In addition to the fact that we are commanded by God to be holy.  In Leviticus 20: 7-8 it states "sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you."

We are promised that there is no glory greater than the glory of God.  I want that.  I want to be with that all the time.  I can't imagine that there is sadness in the presence of God, or hurt, or pain, or jealousy, or any of those other things that we feel here on earth that make us want to cry.  I want that.  It is enough of a motivation for me to try as hard as I can on my side to stay clean, and to call upon the Lord for help with the trouble spots.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone felt that way?