Holiness

This morning our teacher in Small Group asked, "How do we become more holy?" A part of me wanted to raise my hand and say, "Well, we make a list of things we should  and shouldn't do. The bigger the list and the better we stick to it the more holy we are." I refrained. Someone else had a much better answer, she said, "We become more holy by confessing sins." I agreed with her answer, but thought there must be more to it than that. I thought about the people in my life that I consider holy. They don't seem to be striving toward holiness; it's like holiness just happened to them while they were striving toward something else. I thought about humility. Humility isn't when we think little of ourselves, it's when we don't think about ourselves at all. The moment we think we've become a humble person, we've become proud. We can't specifically work towards becoming more humble. Humility happens when we stop thinking so much of ourselves and put our eyes on Christ and others. Maybe holiness is the same way. If we try to become holy, we become legalistic. If we stop trying to work on our own holiness and put our focus on God's holiness, we will be in awe of His greatness and overwhelmed by our sinfulness. The people I consider holy, are the most humble and most aware of how much they fall short. They don't think they're holy, which is probably a good indication that they are. Should we specifically strive toward holiness? if so, how do we without becoming legalistic?