God has called every Christian to a holy life. There are no exceptions to this call. This call to a holy life is based on the fact that God himself is holy. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.
Holiness in Scripture describes both the majesty of God and the purity and moral perfection of his nature. Holiness is one of his attributes—an essential part of the nature of God. His holiness is as necessary as his existence—as necessary, for example, as his wisdom or omniscience. Just as he cannot but know what is right, so he cannot but do what is right.
The absolute holiness of God should be of great comfort and assurance to us. If God is perfectly holy, we can be confident that his actions toward us are always perfect and just. We're often tempted to question God's actions and complain that he is unfair in his treatment of us. This is the devil's lie, the same thing he essentially told Eve: "God is being unfair to you" (Genesis 3:4-5). But it is impossible in the very nature of God that he should ever be unfair. Because he is holy, all his actions are holy.
We must accept by faith the fact that God is holy, even when trying circumstances make it appear otherwise. To complain against God is in effect to deny his holiness and to say he is not fair. As Stephen Charnock said, "It is less injury to him to deny his being, than to deny the purity of it; the one makes him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God . . . he that saith God is not holy speaks much worse than he that saith there is no God at all." (Excerpt taken from Jerry Bridges' The Pursuit of Holiness)
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