What Does Holiness Mean in the Eyes of God Rather Than Man?

Brief Overview

• Holiness in God’s view focuses on inner transformation and a sincere heart rather than outward displays or what others can see.
• Man often judges holiness based on appearance, reputation, and actions that impress others, but God looks at the soul and true intentions.
• The Catholic Church teaches that real holiness comes from grace working within us, not from performing good acts to gain approval.
• Jesus warned His followers not to follow the example of people who did good things only to be noticed and praised by others.
• True holiness involves growing closer to God through prayer, sacraments, and genuine love for Him and others.
• God sees what is hidden in our hearts, including our motivations, struggles, and the authentic desire to follow Him.

How God Sees Holiness Differently From Human Judgment

God’s view of holiness starts with something very different from what most people notice. When humans look at someone and decide if they are holy, they usually see things like how often the person goes to church, how much money they give to charity, or how well they follow rules. God, however, looks at the human heart and understands the real reasons why someone does these things. The Bible shows us this truth through many examples where God chooses people that others overlook or reject. God cares about whether a person truly loves Him and wants to become better, not whether they look perfect on the outside. A person might give large amounts of money to help the poor, but if they do it to make themselves feel superior or to gain praise, God sees this selfish reason. Another person might give a small amount of their limited money with a sincere heart, and God values this act far more. Jesus taught His followers to watch out for people who do good things only to be seen by others and to receive honor. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that God sees everything about us, including our deepest thoughts and desires. This means that holiness in God’s eyes means having a heart that honestly wants to serve Him and love others. True holiness cannot be faked or performed for an audience because God knows everything hidden inside us.

The Problem With Seeking Human Approval Instead of God’s Approval

When someone chases after the respect and praise of other people instead of seeking to please God, they fall into a trap that Jesus specifically warned about. Jesus spoke about the Pharisees, who were very strict about following religious laws and wanted everyone to see how religious they were. These leaders would make a big show of their prayers and good works so that people would admire them and think they were very holy. Jesus taught that these people had already received their full reward, which was the approval and attention of others, but they had missed out on something much more important. When we spend our energy trying to look good to other people, we stop caring about our actual relationship with God. We might stop praying when no one is watching, or we might start being kind only to people who can help us or who will tell others about our kindness. We might avoid doing good in situations where no one would ever know or give us credit for it. Jesus showed us that the people who truly matter, the ones whose opinions should shape our choices, are God the Father and those who follow Him sincerely. If we work only for human approval, we become slaves to other people’s opinions, and we lose our freedom and our focus on what really matters. The Catechism teaches that authentic Christian life requires living not for ourselves or for the praise of others, but for God and for genuine love of our neighbors. When we understand that God alone knows our true hearts and our true motives, we gain freedom from the constant pressure to impress others.

How God Values the Interior Life Over Appearances

The foundation of holiness in God’s eyes is what happens inside a person, in their thoughts, desires, and intentions. The Catholic faith teaches that God looks at the heart, and this becomes clear throughout Scripture and Church teaching. In the Old Testament, God rejected Cain’s offering not because the offering itself was bad, but because Cain’s heart was not right with God. God later chose David as king when the prophet Samuel came to anoint one of his sons, even though everyone else expected a different choice. Samuel looked at the oldest and strongest sons, but God told him that He does not judge by appearance the way humans do. God was looking at David’s heart and his capacity to love and serve God and His people. Jesus Himself valued the inner transformation of the heart above all external religious practices. He criticized people who cleaned the outside of their cups but left the inside full of greed and selfishness, showing that outer cleanliness meant nothing if the heart remained dirty with sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the human heart is the seat of moral choice and that our choices come from what is in our hearts. A person who struggles with anger but fights against it each day and turns to God for help shows more true holiness than someone who appears calm and patient but hides anger and bitterness inside. God values the struggle itself and the honest effort to grow closer to Him far more than the appearance of having already achieved perfection. Someone who admits their weaknesses and turns to God for mercy shows more holiness than someone who pretends to have no faults and looks down on others. God’s concern is with our deepening love for Him and our genuine desire to become better each day.

Saints and Sinners as God Sees Them

The Catholic Church shows us through the lives of the saints that holiness does not always match what the world thinks is impressive or respectable. Many saints lived lives that others would have considered failures or embarrassments by worldly standards. Saint Francis of Assisi was born into wealth and his family expected him to become a successful merchant and a respected member of society. Instead, he gave away everything he had and lived a simple life focused on serving God and the poor. People in his town thought he was foolish and brought shame to his family, but God saw a heart that was truly devoted to Him. Saint Mary Magdalene had lived a life of sin before she met Jesus, yet Jesus saw something true and good in her heart, and she became one of His most devoted followers. People judged her based on her past, but Jesus saw her sincere desire to change and her real love for Him. The Catholic Church teaches that holiness is not something a person achieves by being born into the right family or having the right job or social status. Someone who works as a garbage collector and serves God with a pure heart is holier in God’s eyes than a person who holds a position of power and authority but uses it for selfish reasons. Someone who struggles with illness, pain, or difficulty in life but maintains faith and offers their suffering to God shows real holiness. God sees the effort and the sincere desire to follow Him, and this matters far more than the outward circumstances of someone’s life. The lives of the saints teach us that God chooses and honors people based on the truth of their hearts and their commitment to following Him, not based on what other people think is important or successful.

The Role of Grace in True Holiness

True holiness is not something that a person can earn or build up through their own effort alone, according to Catholic teaching. Grace is God’s free gift to us, and this grace is what makes real holiness possible in our lives. Without God’s grace working in us, we cannot truly love God or change ourselves to become better. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that grace is a gift that God gives us freely, not because we deserve it or have earned it. This grace heals us, makes us holy, and helps us grow in our love for God and for others. When we use the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, we receive grace that transforms us from the inside. Grace works not by forcing us to do good things against our will, but by changing our hearts and making us want to serve God and love others. A person who feels that they have no strength to resist temptation or to change their bad habits can turn to God in prayer and receive grace that strengthens them. God’s grace does not make the struggle disappear, but it gives us the power to face the struggle with hope and with real ability to overcome it. Someone who has committed serious sins can receive God’s mercy and forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation, and this grace can make them holier than they were before. A person who understands that their holiness comes as a gift from God and not from their own work becomes humble and grateful. This humility is a sign of true holiness because it shows that a person knows God is the source of all good things in their life. The grace that God gives us works quietly within us, changing us bit by bit, year by year, into the people God wants us to become.

How Jesus Taught About True Holiness

Jesus gave His followers clear lessons about what holiness really means and how God judges it. One of His most famous teachings came when He saw a poor widow give a small coin to the temple treasury while rich people gave large amounts of money. Jesus told His followers that the widow had given more than all the rich people because she gave everything she had, while they gave only a small part of their wealth. Jesus was not talking about the amount of money but about what the gift cost the giver and what it showed about their heart. Jesus also spent time with people who were considered sinful and unclean by the religious leaders of His time. He ate with tax collectors, who were seen as traitors and criminals because they worked for the Roman government. He treated a woman who had been caught in sin with mercy and compassion, telling her that He did not condemn her and that she should go and sin no more. The religious leaders were shocked by this behavior because they believed that holy people should stay away from sinners and focus on their own purity. Jesus showed that true holiness includes reaching out to people who are struggling and showing them God’s love and mercy. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that real righteousness is not just about following rules but about having a transformed heart. He said that murder begins in the heart with anger, and that committing adultery in the heart with lust is a sin just as real as the physical act. Jesus taught that authentic holiness means working to change not just our actions but our very thoughts and desires. He showed that a person could follow all the rules perfectly and still be far from God if their heart was not in it. The lessons Jesus taught show us that God cares about transformation from the inside out, not just about looking good on the outside.

The Danger of Spiritual Pride and Self-Deception

One of the biggest obstacles to true holiness is spiritual pride, which happens when a person begins to think that they are better than others because of their religious practices or their good works. Spiritual pride is dangerous because it separates a person from God by making them focus on how great they are instead of how great God is. Someone who prays in a way that is meant to be seen by others and to show off how religious they are has already lost the real benefit of prayer. Prayer is meant to connect us with God and to change our hearts, not to impress other people or to make ourselves feel superior. Jesus told a story about two men who went to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and one a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and said a prayer that was really about listing all the good things he did and how much better he was than other people. The tax collector stood far away and would not even look up to heaven, saying only that God should be merciful to him because he was a sinner. Jesus said that the tax collector went home justified before God, not the Pharisee. The person who prays with honesty about their weakness and their need for God’s mercy is closer to holiness than the person who brags about their spiritual accomplishments. Self-deception is when a person lies to themselves about their own heart and their own motives, telling themselves that they do good things for God when they are really doing them for themselves. The Catechism teaches that we must examine our conscience carefully and honestly to avoid deceiving ourselves about why we do the things we do. It is easy to fool other people and to convince them that we are holy when we are not, but we cannot fool God. God sees through all our attempts to hide our true motives and knows exactly what is really in our hearts. True holiness requires humility and honesty about ourselves, including being willing to admit our faults and our selfish motives when we notice them.

Holiness and Suffering in God’s View

God often sees holiness and spiritual growth in how a person handles suffering and difficulty, not in how much they avoid pain or achieve comfort. Someone who faces illness, loss, failure, or hardship and maintains their faith and trust in God shows a kind of holiness that worldly success could never demonstrate. The Catholic Church teaches that suffering can have meaning and that when a person offers their suffering to God along with their prayers and works, it becomes part of the redemptive work of Christ. Someone who is in pain but refuses to blame God or to lose faith is showing a holiness that others might not notice or understand. A person who loses their job and worries about how to pay their bills but still prays and trusts God shows real faith and real holiness. Someone who faces a serious illness and spends their time praying not just for themselves but for others, and forgiving those who have hurt them, is showing true holiness. The world might say this person is a failure because they lost their job or because they got sick, but God sees their heart and their faithfulness. Many of the greatest saints in the Catholic Church faced intense suffering, and their holiness grew through their suffering rather than despite it. Saint Paul wrote about his sufferings and said that he rejoiced in them because his sufferings joined him to the suffering of Christ. He was saying that when we suffer and offer it to God, we are participating in Christ’s work of saving the world. God does not value only the times when our lives go smoothly and we feel happy and successful. God values the times when everything falls apart and we still hold onto our faith in Him. This kind of faithfulness in the face of suffering is a holiness that money cannot buy and that human praise cannot create.

How the Sacraments Shape True Holiness

The Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments are the primary way that God gives grace to His people and helps them grow in holiness. The sacrament of Baptism starts a person on the path of holiness by removing original sin and making them a child of God. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, which Jesus gave to His Church and commanded His followers to celebrate, God feeds our souls with His own body and blood. This gift transforms us and unites us to Christ in a way that nothing else can. When a person receives the Eucharist with a sincere heart and genuine faith, they are fed by Christ Himself and receive grace that changes them. The sacrament of Reconciliation offers a way for us to turn away from sin and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness. When we confess our sins honestly and express true sorrow for them, God forgives us and restores our friendship with Him. This sacrament helps us grow in holiness by giving us the strength to avoid sin in the future and to follow God’s commandments more faithfully. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments work through God’s power, not through the worthiness of the priest who celebrates them or the person who receives them. This means that even if a priest is not a perfect or holy person, the grace of the sacrament still comes to those who receive it with faith. A person who regularly participates in the sacraments shows a commitment to growing in holiness and receiving the grace that God offers. The sacraments connect us to the life and death of Jesus Christ and make us part of His work in the world. Through the sacraments, God offers us a path to true holiness that is available to all of us, not just to the specially talented or the naturally good.

Living Holiness in Daily Ordinary Life

True holiness is not something that only monks and priests can achieve or that requires leaving the world behind to live in isolation. The Catholic Church teaches that all people, no matter what their life circumstances are, are called to holiness and can find it in their daily lives. A parent who gets up each morning and cares for their children with patience and love is living holiness. Someone who goes to work each day and does their job honestly and fairly, treating their coworkers with respect and kindness, is living holiness. A person who struggles with a difficult neighbor or family member and works to forgive them and treat them with charity is living holiness. The Catechism teaches that the ordinary activities of life become holy when we do them with the intention of serving God and loving others. A mother who prepares meals for her family, a father who works to provide for his children, a student who studies diligently, a nurse who cares for sick people, a teacher who educates young people; all of these are living holiness if they do these things with love and with the desire to serve God. Holiness is not about doing extraordinary things that impress people but about doing ordinary things with extraordinary love and care. The key to living holiness in ordinary life is to bring God into everything we do and to do everything we do for love of Him and love of others. When we prepare a meal, we can do it as a gift of love to the people we feed. When we work at our job, we can do it knowing that we are serving God through the service we provide to others. When we spend time with someone who is lonely or hurting, we can remember that Jesus said that when we help the least important people, we are helping Him. This understanding transforms ordinary daily life into something holy and meaningful.

Humility as the Foundation of True Holiness

Humility is not about thinking badly of yourself or pretending that you have no good qualities or talents. True humility means seeing yourself as you really are, understanding that everything good about you comes from God, and recognizing that you depend on God’s grace for everything. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that humility opens us to God’s grace and removes the obstacles that keep God’s love out of our hearts. Someone who is truly humble knows their own weaknesses and faults but also knows that they are loved by God despite these things. A humble person accepts criticism and correction without becoming defensive or angry because they understand that they are not perfect. Someone with real humility can see the good in other people and appreciate their talents and efforts without feeling threatened or envious. Jesus taught His followers to become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, and part of this means having the humility and openness that children have. Jesus Himself showed humility by washing the feet of His disciples, a job that was considered beneath the dignity of a teacher or leader in that culture. Jesus was showing that true greatness comes from humble service to others, not from having power over others or receiving honor from them. The saints of the Catholic Church were all marked by deep humility and a clear understanding that whatever good they did came from God’s grace and not from their own strength. Saint Francis called himself the worst of sinners even though he was one of the greatest saints the Church has known. Saint Therese of Lisieux spoke of her “little way” of doing small things with great love, rejecting any idea that she was doing anything important or impressive. This humility connected them to God and allowed His grace to work powerfully through them. Without humility, a person may do many good works and perform many religious practices, but their holiness will be shallow and will not truly transform their heart.

The Importance of Honest Self-Examination

To grow in true holiness, we must be willing to look at ourselves honestly and see where our motives might not be as pure as we wish them to be. The Catholic Church encourages people to examine their conscience regularly, thinking about their actions and their reasons for doing things. When we examine our conscience, we are not supposed to focus on finding big dramatic sins but rather on understanding ourselves better and recognizing places where we have acted out of selfishness or pride. We might realize that we helped someone but part of our reason was to make ourselves look good rather than purely to serve that person. We might notice that we were kind to someone in public but unkind to the same person in private where no one was watching. We might see that we gave money to charity but kept back some money that we could have given, out of fear or selfishness. Honest self-examination requires courage because it means facing things about ourselves that are not flattering or comfortable to see. The Catechism teaches that conscience is the place where we hear God’s voice calling us to do what is right and to turn away from what is wrong. When we examine our conscience regularly, we develop a deeper connection with God and become more able to hear His voice guiding us. Someone who never examines their conscience or who avoids looking at their true motives is closing themselves off from growth and from real holiness. Examining our conscience is not about punishing ourselves or feeling bad about ourselves but about understanding ourselves more clearly so that we can make better choices and grow closer to God. This honest self-examination is a sign of real holiness because it shows that we care more about serving God truly than about maintaining a false image of ourselves.

How Community and the Church Help Us Grow in Holiness

The Catholic Church is not just a collection of individual believers trying to become holy on their own but a community of people who help and support each other in their journey toward God. When we worship together at Mass, we are united with countless others who are also seeking to grow in holiness and to follow Christ. The Church provides us with spiritual leaders, sacraments, teachings, and examples of holy people that help us understand what true holiness looks like. Priests are meant to guide people toward holiness, and they do this through teaching, through the sacraments, and through their own example. Someone who is tempted to be dishonest might gain strength from seeing other people who choose honesty even when it costs them something. A person who struggles with anger might be helped by seeing someone in their faith community who handles frustration with patience and kindness. The Church also corrects us when we are wrong, and this correction, when received with humility, helps us grow in holiness. If we are deceiving ourselves about our own hearts or our own motives, people who know us well can sometimes see this and help us face the truth about ourselves. The community of the Church reminds us that we are not alone in our struggle to follow Christ and to grow in holiness. We share the same basic human struggles and challenges with all the other people around us. We can find encouragement and strength in knowing that others have faced similar temptations and difficulties and have remained faithful to God. The Catechism teaches that God created us to live in community and that we need each other to grow spiritually and to become fully the people God wants us to be. The Church gives us the structure and the support we need to pursue holiness not in isolation but in the company of others who are seeking the same thing.

Recognizing God’s Hidden Holiness in Others

Because true holiness is something internal and because God alone can see the human heart, we may often fail to recognize how holy someone really is. Someone might work quietly to help others without wanting any credit or attention, and the people around them might not even notice all the good things they do. A person might have a pure heart and genuine love for God but might not be able to express this in ways that impress or attract other people. We might judge someone as not being very holy because they are quiet or because they do not participate in obvious religious practices, when in fact their heart might be deeply devoted to God. Jesus taught His followers not to judge other people, partly because we simply cannot see the truth of someone’s heart the way God can. We might see someone who is struggling with sin and assume that they are far from God, when in fact they might be working hard to turn away from sin and their struggle might actually show their commitment to following God. The Catechism teaches that the Church recognizes and honors the holiness of its members through the process of canonization, declaring certain people as saints after studying their lives carefully. However, the Church also acknowledges that there are countless holy people whose lives are never studied and whose holiness is never formally recognized. These people live and die doing good works and loving God faithfully, and while the world may never know about them, God knows them completely. We should approach other people with humility and with the understanding that we cannot truly judge their hearts or know how close they are to God. Someone who appears to be failing in the eyes of the world might be succeeding in the eyes of God. A person who seems to lack any impressive accomplishments might actually be achieving the greatest thing; a sincere and loving relationship with God.

The Connection Between Holiness and Love

At the very heart of true holiness is love, not just feelings of affection but real, active love for God and for other people. Jesus taught that the greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. All of the Law and the Prophets, Jesus said, depend on these two commandments. This means that everything in the Catholic faith, all the rules and practices, are meant to help us grow in love for God and for others. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that love is the highest good and that the purpose of the spiritual life is to grow in love. A person who follows all the rules and practices of the Church but does not have real love for God or for others is like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal; their actions make noise but they produce nothing of real value. Saint Paul wrote that love is patient and kind, that it is not jealous or boastful or rude. Love does not insist on its own way but seeks the good of others. If we examine ourselves according to these qualities of love, we can see whether we are growing in real holiness. Someone might do many good works but if they do them with impatience or pride or unkindness, they are not acting from real love. A person who treats others with genuine kindness and patience and works to help them even when it costs the person something is showing real love and real holiness. The connection between holiness and love is so strong that we can say that true holiness is nothing other than love growing deeper and stronger in our hearts. When God looks at our hearts and judges our holiness, He is really asking whether our hearts are growing in love; whether we are learning to love Him more completely and to love other people more faithfully.

Living With the Knowledge That God Sees All

Understanding that God sees everything about us, including all our hidden thoughts and deepest desires, should change the way we live our lives. If we truly believed that God knows whether we are kind to people when no one is watching, whether we are honest when we could get away with being dishonest, whether we pray sincerely or just go through the motions, we would make different choices. The Catechism teaches that God is all-knowing and that nothing is hidden from Him. This truth can be frightening to someone who is trying to hide parts of themselves or who is trying to maintain a false image. However, it can also be liberating and comforting because it means that God knows the truth about us, including the good things in our hearts that no one else knows about. A person who suffers quietly and does not complain, whose hard work goes unrecognized, whose sacrifice is never noticed by anyone; God sees all of this. Someone whose good heart is hidden by shyness or inability to express themselves clearly; God knows their heart and values it. When we truly accept that God sees all and knows all, we stop working so hard to impress other people and instead focus on following God with sincere hearts. We stop being devastated when we are misunderstood or when our good intentions are interpreted wrongly because we know that God understands the truth. We stop feeling bitter when we are not given credit for our good works because we know that God sees and knows. This knowledge of God’s all-seeing eye is meant to make us more honest with ourselves and more faithful in living as God wants us to live. We become people who do what is right because it is right, not because we will be praised for it; who are kind because kindness matters, not because anyone will notice; who pray and worship because we genuinely want to connect with God, not to make an impression on anyone else.

Making Choices That Reflect True Holiness

Every day we make choices that either move us toward true holiness or away from it, and these choices often happen in small moments that no one else sees or knows about. When we face a choice to be honest or dishonest, kind or unkind, patient or impatient, we are choosing whether to pursue real holiness or to settle for a false image of holiness. A clerk in a store might ring up a price slightly wrong in a way that the customer will not notice, saving the customer money. The clerk might think no one will ever know about this small act of honesty, but God sees it and values it as an act of holiness. A parent might be frustrated and tired at the end of a long day, tempted to yell at their child over a small thing, but they take a breath and respond with patience and kindness instead. No one else might ever know about this choice, but God sees the sincere effort to do the right thing in a moment of temptation. Someone might be tempted to spread gossip about another person, something that would make them seem smarter or funnier or more interesting in the eyes of their friends. But they hold back and say nothing, choosing to protect another person’s reputation even when no one would give them credit for their silence. These small choices, made in private moments when no one is watching, are where real holiness is built. The Catechism teaches that we cooperate with God’s grace through the choices we make each day. We cannot become truly holy by accident or by trying to look holy on the outside. We become holy through repeated choices to follow God and to love others, choices that we make in the quiet of our own hearts. Over time, these choices become patterns and these patterns become the real shape of our lives and our hearts. When we die and come before God, what will matter is not what people thought of us but whether we lived with sincere hearts and genuine love for God. All our small choices, all our hidden acts of kindness or honesty or courage, all our quiet prayers and private acts of faith; these are what compose our real holiness in the eyes of God.

The Ongoing Journey Toward Holiness

Holiness is not a destination that we reach and then stop growing, but a direction that we continue moving in throughout our entire lives. Even the greatest saints in the Catholic Church did not think of themselves as having already achieved complete holiness. Instead, they continued to grow, to learn, to deepen their relationship with God, and to become more loving and more faithful. The Catechism teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that this holiness comes through following Christ and living according to His teachings. This is not a goal that only a few special people can reach but a call that applies to all believers. A young person starting their faith journey and an elderly person who has followed Christ for fifty years are both on this same path toward holiness. The young person might see all the work ahead and feel discouraged, but the older person can offer encouragement by showing that God’s grace is sufficient for the journey. Someone might make mistakes and fall into sin, and then they might feel that they have failed and that they can never be holy. The sacrament of Reconciliation reminds us that we can always turn back to God and begin again. Our failures and our sins do not disqualify us from pursuing holiness; rather, they can teach us humility and help us understand our need for God’s mercy and grace. The journey toward holiness requires patience with ourselves and with others. It requires honest self-examination and a willingness to grow and to change. It requires trusting in God’s grace and believing that God will help us become the people He wants us to be. Throughout our lives, we will face new situations and new challenges that call us to deeper faith and greater love. The path of holiness is not boring or repetitive but is constantly unfolding in new ways as we face different circumstances and different opportunities to serve God and to love others. This ongoing journey is what makes the pursuit of holiness a living and vital part of our faith rather than a set of rules or expectations to be checked off.

Conclusion: Seeking God’s Approval Above All

True holiness in the eyes of God is fundamentally different from the appearance of holiness that impresses other people. God looks at the human heart and judges us based on our sincere desire to love Him and to follow His will. God values honesty over pretense, genuine faith over performance, and sincere love over impressive-looking works done for selfish reasons. All of us are called to pursue this real holiness, not because we must achieve some impossible standard but because God invites us into a relationship with Him that transforms us from the inside out. The road to true holiness passes through humility, honesty about ourselves, regular participation in the sacraments, and daily choices to follow Christ. It passes through suffering that tests our faith and through ordinary moments that offer chances to be kind or cruel, honest or dishonest, patient or impatient. True holiness looks different for each person because each of us has different life circumstances, different struggles, and different ways of serving God and loving others. A parent will express holiness differently than a single person; someone with wealth will express it differently than someone with poverty; someone with a public position will express it differently than someone whose work is private and unnoticed. What matters is not the external form our holiness takes but whether it comes from a sincere heart and grows from genuine love for God. When we stop worrying so much about what other people think and start focusing on having a right relationship with God, we become free to pursue real holiness. We become free to do good things even when we will not get credit for them. We become free to admit our weaknesses and to ask for help. We become free to serve others not to gain their approval but because service is an expression of love. This freedom and this transformation of the heart is what God sees and values. This is the holiness that matters in the eyes of God.