What comes to mind when you hear the word “holiness”?

Rules?

Restrictions?

A joyless Christian life filled with don’t do this and don’t do that?

Sadly, that’s how many people see it.

But what if holiness is almost the opposite?

What if growing in holiness is really about becoming more like Christ—gaining wisdom, making better decisions, experiencing greater peace, avoiding needless consequences, and increasingly living the kind of life God designed us to live?

If that’s true, why wouldn’t we want more of it?

But there’s another side to today’s discussion.

How does a person move in the opposite direction?

How does someone become a habitual liar—even lying when the truth would make more sense?

How does anger become a way of life?

How does someone become so trapped in sexual sin, addiction, bitterness, or another pattern that he can barely see what it is doing to him and everyone around him?

Scripture gives us a sobering principle:

Sin leads somewhere.

So does obedience.

And the direction we repeatedly choose can affect not only what we do—but eventually how clearly we are able to see.