Miscellanies 4.7.43

so that he may save his soul. And yet, even if you die for your neighbor out of love, and consider the Savior our neighbor (for God, who saves, is said to draw near to the one being saved), you will die having chosen death for the sake of life, suffering for your own sake rather than his. Is not this why he is called brother? Because the one who suffers out of love for God has suffered for his own salvation, and again the one who dies for his own salvation endures for love of the Lord. For he himself, being life, wished to suffer for those for whom he suffered, so that we might live by his suffering. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’” he says, “and do not do what I say?” For the people who love with their lips but have their heart far from the Lord is another, persuaded by another, and has willingly sold himself to him. But those who carry out the Savior's commandments bear witness in every action, doing what he wills, naming the Lord consistently, and bearing witness by deed to the one to whom they trust they belong, “those who have crucified the flesh with its desires and passions.” “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” he says. “The one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh; but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”