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A good Christian does good to everyone, friends and enemies, acquaintances and strangers, imitating the Heavenly Father, who commands His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). His house is open to every wanderer, and everyone who is hungry eats his bread. He will not let the naked go without clothing, if he has something to clothe. He will not refuse help to anyone who needs help if he can. With someone who is suffering and crying, he will shed tears and cry. He is the first to go to the grieving person with consolation and tries, as best he can, to heal the wounded heart. With the one who rejoices, he rejoices in his well-being as if it were his own. Everyone seeks and asks for mercy from God, just as he does for himself. I would be zealously glad if I saw everyone saved. And if it were possible and I had something, I would help everyone in need. Seeing a brother sin, he does not judge him, but sympathizes with the spirit of mercy... Christian! Become good and then you will do good deeds. And to become good, you need to: 1. Turn to God with all your heart and be in true repentance. Without this, a person cannot be good. 2. Read God's Word and other Christian books with attention and meditate on them diligently. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). 3. Try to recognize the corruption and damnation of your heart. From knowing yourself will come humility and efforts to correct yourself. For the weak must first recognize the weakness of the weak and then seek healing. The beginning of health is the knowledge of weakness, and the beginning of correction is the knowledge of one’s misfortune and wretchedness. Who, seeing the deadly poison hidden within himself, would not wish to free himself from it with zeal? And who, seeing his destruction, will not try to get rid of it? Knowing yourself is the beginning of salvation. Know yourself, man, and unfeignedly admit your poverty and wretchedness before God. And give yourself into the hands of Christ, just as a weak person gives himself to a doctor, and then Christ will heal you! 4. Beware of all sin and force yourself to do all good, although your heart does not want to. The Lord, seeing such diligence and zeal for good, will show mercy to the one who is trying and correct him day by day for the better. A weak person, when he wants to be healed, avoids everything that the doctor forbids him to do, although his desire leads him to do so. Likewise, a Christian must evade everything that the Heavenly Physician Christ forbids, although his heart does not want. Otherwise it cannot be healed. 5. Pray earnestly and ask for correction from Christ Himself, Who cleansed the lepers, enlightened the blind, and healed the weak. He will also heal our immortal souls if we fervently pray to Him and strive to do so ourselves, according to His false promise: ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8). Convert me, Lord, and I will be converted. Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed (Jer. 31:18; 17:14), and without Him there is no conversion and healing. Everyone loves good, and the greater the good, the more he loves it. And although people love evil, they love it not as evil, but under the guise of good. No one is good except God alone (Matthew 19:17). Who should we love if not Him alone? Like fire is always hot and always warms, like light is always light and shines, like honey is always sweet and delights, so God is always and unceasingly good and always does good. And just as fire cannot but warm, and light cannot but enlighten, and honey cannot but delight, so God cannot but do good. Such is His nature to do good. From Him alone is all good that exists and can be. From Him comes consolation, joy, joy and bliss. Without Him there can be no true bliss, consolation, joy and fun. God also benefits us when He punishes us. For he punishes us in order to correct us; beats us to have mercy on us; breaks us in order to heal us; makes us sad in order to make us happy. He creates everything to please us. We see that people, when they know good, seek it. Thus, if they realize that goodness is wealth for them, they seek it; they know that bread is good for them, and they seek it; they recognize that clothing is good for them, and they seek it; they recognize that home is good for them, and they seek it; they learn that art, artistry, reason and wisdom are good for them, and they look for them, and so on. And the more good they know, the more diligently they seek it. But we never look for the unknown good: how can we look for what we don’t know? Therefore, we must first know good and then seek it. So God - the highest, natural and eternal known Good - is sought; and the more a person knows Him, the more diligently and diligently he seeks Him and desires and seeks nothing either on earth or in heaven but Him, singing with the prophet in his heart: “What is in heaven for me?” and without You, what could I desire on earth (see Ps. 72:25-26), and so on - but, leaving everything behind, he hurries to Him with a thirsty spirit. And if you call yourself a good person and another evil person, then it is not known who is better: you or he, whom you call evil. He is not good who calls himself good, but he who does good and whom God, the righteous Judge, praises. For a deed to be truly good, it must be good both outside and inside; then it happens to be good when good is done, that is, when it happens from a good heart and for a good purpose, that is, it happens to the glory of God and the benefit of one’s neighbor. Whatever good a person does to another, he gives not his own, but God’s, for we have nothing of our own except corruption and sins. Everything and every good is God’s, not ours. We owe both soul and body to God, our Creator, and even more so for other good things. Therefore, when someone does good to a person, he gives from God’s goodness given to him. God alone will give us His own good, for all good, either mental or physical, His good is and only comes from Him, the Source of good. God is the highest Good, from Whom all good and bliss that exists and can be flows. Without God, all bliss is wretchedness and poverty, life is death, joy and sweetness are sorrow. To live with God even in misfortune is happiness, in poverty there is wealth, in dishonor there is glory, in dishonor there is honor, in sorrow there is consolation. Without God there can be no true rest, peace and consolation. Therefore, love Him as the highest Good and Bliss, love more than every creature, more than father and mother, more than wife and children, and more than yourself. Cling to Him alone with your heart and most of all desire and seek Him, because He is your eternal good and bliss, without Whom there is no life and bliss in the present age and in the future. Every creation of God is good, but the Creator is incomparably better. Love and desire Him as Good itself, as essential, beginningless, infinite, ever-present and immutable, from which all creatures are made good.