thought provoking

So, I was talking to someone online, about the Dalai Lama, and how he seems to be a very holy and wise person. This phrase was used: "to really be Holy, there's something more that most people don't have... or can't attain." And I got to thinking about holiness. And what exactly is holiness, and why can't people attain it, when other people like the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa can. So, my friend Merriam W. said this:

1) exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness 2) divine 3) devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity 4) having a divine quality

So, based on the first two definitions, I guess holiness is unattainable, since I am neither perfect nor divine, and by the same token, the Dalai Lama isn't either, because he's still an imperfect human too. But then I started thinking, and digging deeper, and I came across this:

1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 7- 10

7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone," 8 and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

And I latched onto the part about the holy nation. Because that means that people CAN be holy. But I kept digging. And I found out how and why:

Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 5- 14

5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. 7 Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do Your will, O God.' " 8 First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor were You pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do Your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy

It was fascinating to me, because... well, I'd known it all my life, I was tested on it in grade school, I heard it so much that I sort of took it for granted. And now, when I started questioning it, I was hit in the face by its meaningful-ness. I guess you could say I've understood it all my life, but tonight, I understood it. I appreciate my religion that much more now. And that's the way a lot of my religion took root in me. I started questioning things, and no amount of explanation by anyone else could explain it. I had to figure it out for myself.

So... that's just something really cool that I stumbled across. Somehow, I feel like its buried treasure or something.