Actions and Faith

• The church is serving dinner to homeless people on Christmas Eve. You know that you should go and help, but you don't want to.
• Morning worship is at 10am, but it's Sunday, and you really want to sleep late.
• The person in front of you in line is taking forever at the grocery store. You would like to tell her to stop asking the clerk about the freshness of the broccoli, and just move along.

What is your response? Do you do what you believe to be "right" even is you don't feel like it? Is there value in doing "good" when you don't want to, and are only doing it out of guilt or obligation? Do you wish sometimes that you felt more spiritual and faithful so that when you are confronted with these kinds of situation, you are motivated by joy instead of guilt

I was reading Ortberg's Faith and Doubt. He explained that as the disciples followed Jesus, they found that when they did what Jesus did that his teachings actually made sense.

As I read that passage, I wrote in the book, "Will our actions help to increase our faith? Can faith be made more alive through actions?"

I think that perhaps it can.