Stop Trying to Act So Holy
Sep 09, 2025
Has anybody ever told you it’s possible to make ordinary moments holy?
That’s a bunch of crap.
The last time somebody tried to “encourage” me with this message, I nearly hurled out of my seat in protest. Not because I don’t believe ordinary moments can be holy. They can be.
They are.
And that’s exactly my point.
We don’t need to do anything to make an ordinary experience more godly, more “Christian-like.” If you’re a believer, then your daily existence—the very fact that you are who you are, and you’re doing the work God called you to do—is already, inherently holy.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)
For example, let’s say you’re a mom making peanut butter toast for the fiftieth time this week, and you serve it up on a plastic Bluey plate. Do you need to write a Bible verse on your kiddo’s napkin in order to redeem that moment for Christ? Of course not.
The act of caring lovingly for a child or a spouse or an aging parent is already an expression of obedience and gratitude to Jesus. He tells us to “feed my lambs” (John 21:15) which for some people might mean building a mission house for orphans in Africa or, more likely, it just means, quite literally, feeding the people in your home. Tending to them. Sacrificing for them—no bonus Bible lesson required.
And if you’re a musician, do you need to play hymns in order to please God? No. Using the talents He gave you to create musical expression, to reflect His nature as an artist, that alone is worship. We don’t need to superimpose Christian lyrics or a Bible-related title onto a piece of music in order for it to be valuable in God’s eyes, or to move people’s hearts. That’s not to say Christian lyrics are bad, of course they’re not, but they’re also not required in order to honor God.
Or what about running a business? So you open a hardware store, and you say “We’re a Christian hardware store.” What does that even mean? Pretty sure you’re selling the same hammers and nails as the guy across town, but your logo boasts a cross, and you stuff gospel tracts in every shopping bag. Great. Beautiful. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But is it what makes your store “Christian”?
Nope. No more than going to church makes you a Christian.
It’s the heart of who you are as a person, the way you sell with integrity and show kindness to customers and shine the light of the Holy Spirit that is within you through something as simple as a smile and an honest demeanor… that is what makes your business holy.
So please. If anybody tries to tell you that your holiness, the worth of your daily life, is dependent on superimposing Jesus onto ordinary moments… run the other way.
Jesus is already in those moments.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law [or by writing a Bible verse on my child’s lunch note], Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:20-21, commentary mine)
The holiness of our boring lives is a given. Our worth as believers is already ascribed to us at salvation. We don’t need to scribble Scripture on top of it or pray over it or buy it a ticket to a discipleship conference in order to redeem our mundanity for Christ.
Often our mundanity itself is exactly the thing about our lives that reflects Christ the most. And that should be really GOOD NEWS.
What part of your "ordinary" life have you been disparaging lately? Can you see it with new eyes today?
Because here's what I want you to remember: You don't need to dress up your life for God to notice it. He's already paying attention to the way you butter that toast, the kindness in your voice when you answer the phone, the integrity you bring to your work.
Your ordinary moments aren't waiting to be redeemed, friends. They already are.
