That's one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. If we could earn our way to heaven, we wouldn't need a Savior. No longer would God's grace and mercy matter. If we could earn salvation, Christ would be unnecessary.
We cannot. He is not.
The only eternal reward we can earn is everlasting damnation and punishment, weeping and gnashing of teeth, as says the Bible.
Think you can earn God's forgiveness, or outweigh your sins by doing good deeds?
Think again.
Two verses pretty much tell it all.
Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Our verse of the day, Romans 6:23 reads, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
From the first we learn that everyone has sinned. From the second we learn that the wages (payment, reward) for that sin is death (spiritual death, everlasting torment, hell).
Paul does not follow that up to say that the wages of good deeds is forgiveness, or that through working hard we can cancel out our debt and earn our keep.
Nope. Hard work isn't the answer. Doing more good than bad doesn't tip the scales in your favor. One slip up, one sin, and you're done. You can't wipe that out. Ever. The wages for your sin is death.
Except for one thing.
The greatest gift.
The wages of sin is death, but . . .
As a preacher I heard one day put it, "Hallelujah for the but!"
But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. God's gift to us is the cancellation of our sin, the replacement of our earned reward of death with the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus.
The greatest gift ever. Period.
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