Faith is not just another word for doing the right thing. But, on the other hand, you will desire to do the right thing if you have faith. Sometimes you will succeed. Other times, it will not be crystal clear to you or anyone else just what the right thing is. But you will always try.
The reason that you will try is that faith is a relationship with Christ and Christ embodies the good and the true. He makes us desire to be good and true. Makes us uncomfortable when we are not. Gives us joy in goodness, even if it means sacrifice on our part. There have been people who faced death willingly for the sake of another, and did so because of their faith in Christ.
The commandments of Christ, after all are pretty simple: love God and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. They are not unlike the comments of the world's olther great ethical teachers, as Christians are sometimes surprised to notice when they begin to read outside their own tradition. Utterly simple, and just as utterly beyond us without reliance upon a power beyond our own pale power. We’re pretty self-centered beings. It is true, though, that a lifetime of allowing oneself to be formed by Christ imparts a strength and a wisdom we didn’t come into this world with. The longer we stay in the neighborhood of God’s love, the more able we become to recognize the good and the more desirous of acting on it.
Love God and do what you like, St. Augustine said many centuries ago. Who you follow will color what you do.
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