If God has called you to write, it’s a call to holiness. The New Testament word for believers is saints. A saint is a holy one. Writing in holiness is our call. If you think your call is something else, you need to be careful. It may not be from God, or it may be obscured by your soul and your flesh.

Writing in holiness is the natural state of a saint

That is who you are in Christ. Jesus, our Messiah, recreates us as holy by sending the Holy Spirit to live within. This is the core of Christian living.

How does holiness apply to you as an author?

The church has been confused about this for many decades. If you ask most strongly believing Christians what is meant by holiness or sanctification (both use the same word in the Greek), they will say, “Set apart.” If you ask them what that means you often get puzzled looks.

Holiness (in Strong’s Concordance): hagioasmos; means 1. consecration, purification So you can see where the set apart teaching comes from. Its meaning doesn’t really become clear until we look in Strong’s Concordance at the Greek for holy— hagios: Sacred (physically pure, morally blameless, ceremonially consecrated).

Vine’s Expository Dictionary puts it this way: “Sanctification is about the separation of the believer from evil things and ways… it must be learned from God… and it must be pursued by the believer, earnestly and undeviatingly… it is an individual possession, built up, little by little, as the result of obedience to the Word of God…”

Jesus is the Word of God as revealed by the Holy Spirit as we study the scriptures after thoughtful prayer for wisdom and guidance. But we must never forget that Jesus is the core of it all. As we are obedient to Him, we learn holiness. As Peter quoted, “You shall be holy, for I am Holy.” He was quoting something the Lord said through Moses centuries earlier. What Moses had not foreseen was the mystery of the Church. Especially the part where we are made holy by His Holiness residing within us, in our spirits. He works His way out through our soul as we allow it and eventually shows us how to purify our flesh.

If we’re believers, we have holiness placed within us

If God calls us to write, His call is writing in holiness. It’s a serious work we’ve been given. Pray hard: before, during, and after we write. Our charge is simple: allow the holiness within free expression as we create our worlds and the stories which take place in them.