A question often posed by those searching for life meaning and confused by the phrase “God is love,” have often come back with the following statement: “If God loves us no matter what we do, then why keep the commandments? If we are not to be punished or rewarded for our efforts, then why make sacrifices?” Fr. Ron Rolheiser responds by telling us that we don’t try to be good so that God loves and rewards us. God loves us no matter what we do and heaven is never a reward for a good life. Are these glib statements? No. As Jesus assures us, God’s love is always both unmerited and unconditional; nothing we do can ever make God love us, just as nothing can stop God from loving us. God loves just as God does everything else perfectly. God loves everything and everybody perfectly. In fact, part of Christian belief is that God’s love is what keeps everything in existence. If God stopped loving anything, it would cease to be. Then why be good? Why keep the commandments? What difference does our response make? Our response makes a big difference, but not in terms of giving God offense, driving God away, or making God punish or reward us. It makes a difference in how we stand and feel in the face of love. We cannot offend against God, but we can offend against others and ourselves. We can, like Satan, live in bitterness and unhappiness right within love itself, and we can deeply hurt others. As Martin Luther once said, the desire to be good and to keep the commandments follows from genuine faith and love the way smoke follows fire. The intent is never to earn love or reward but to respond properly to them. This is true in the case of mature love and faith. However, for those of us who are still struggling to be mature, the spiritual and moral precepts of the faith are meant as a discipline – precisely as discipleship – that helps teach us what it means to be a spiritual and sensitive human being. Trying to be good should still not be an attempt to earn love or heaven somehow, but rather a humble acknowledgment that one still needs a lot of help in knowing how to live in the face of love. Ethics follow naturally when truth, beauty, and love are properly appropriated.