What we do, and what do not do, matters greatly, if not so much in the greater world, but to those around us, and to the resolution of our souls, the essence of our being.
We are free to believe what we will, but we will be held accountable for what we believe and what we do, and the consequences of our beliefs and our unbelief.
There is a simple faith, and an equally simple unbelief. For those who do believe, however they may express that faith in the path that they have chosen, the task is to grow and deepen that faith and make it abundant and fruitful through action. One does not follow the will of God and love by despoiling His creatures and His creation for their own selfishly destructive ends.
If there is not love in your action, then you have lost your way. Where there is not love, there is not life in faith. It is that simple. No love, no life.
"Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven." Matt 7:21And if you think your Lord calls you to hatred, jealousy, intolerance, anger and envy, then you will serve him indeed, forever, so know well whom you serve.
Whatever you may think, what you do matters. You will makes choices, not in some single choice or a grand final test, but day by day, building on each other in a chain of causality and consequence.
You may do what you will, but you will choose. And you will remain with what you have chosen to love, for a very long time. So it is worth some thought. The time grows short, and the shadows lengthen.
"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham.
Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us.
He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about."
John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions
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