What Does Holiness Look Like?

Somewhere along the way I picked up some wrongheaded ideas about holiness. I had the idea that to be holy means to have one's head in the clouds. To be otherworldly. To live a life largely defined by rules and restrictions and don'ts - don't smoke, don't drink, don't cuss, don't chew, and don't associate with people who do. Even when I began to grow out of these false impressions, I still thought of holy people as those who carried around an aura of highly developed religious refinement. They were churchgoers, Bible readers, fasters and prayers, and maybe just a little too heavenly to be of any earthly use...
How did [Jesus] demonstrate holiness? Maybe the best answer is the one he gave to John the Baptist when John [asked] whether Jesus was the One they had been expecting God to send. To confirm that he was God's Holy One, Jesus did not send back the answer we might expect: "Tell John that I pray five times a day ... never miss a synagogue meeting, burn the midnight oil studying the holy scrolls, avoid everything unclean, and wouldn't touch a drop of wine even with gloves on." Instead, he responded, "Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen - the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor" (Matt. 11:4-5 NLT).
Here Jesus shows us [holiness] doesn't mean praying long, eloquent prayers [or] saying "praise the Lord" a lot; or holding up your hands in church. It means getting those hands involved in God's work. Getting them dirty. Being holy means feeding the hungry, seeing to the needs of the sick, helping people in trouble, and comforting them in grief. It means letting your hands be instruments of God's love. It means opening your life to God's Holy Spirit and allowing him to use you to bless others.
-A Simple Blessing: The Extraordinary Power of an Ordinary Prayer by Michael W. Smith, with Thomas Williams