thoughts on holiness

I'm back in the states and have so much to share! For now, here are two quotes that I stumbled upon and shared with my PFO small group this morning [Don't know what PFO is? You will soon :)]. We were reflecting on 1 Peter 1:13-16:

"So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, 'You must be holy because I am holy.'"  NLT, emphasis added

"Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy....The whole purpose of God in redemption is to make us holy and to restore us to the image of God."  
-A.W. Tozer

“Many Christians have what we might call a ‘cultural holiness.’ They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them. As the Christian culture around them is more or less holy, so these Christians are more or less holy. But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.” 
-Jerry Bridges