Why Good Works, Religiosity And Philanthropy Cannot Save Us
Let me give you one of the reasons.
God set the penalty for sin from the beginning---death. Eternal, spiritual and physical death, separation from God in the lake of fire. God said:
"...the wages of sin is death..." Rom 6:23
The moment you truly believe in these words is the moment you will stop attempting to save yourself and earn for yourself forgiveness by doing good, by being religious and by being philanthropic, because, by then, you will be convinced that God will never accept these substitutes to the penalty He has truly set.
You want to really and truly pay for your sins yourself? Then you must die and be eternally separated from God forever. IF FOREVER ENDS, you can come back as a spiritual ex-convict and you can say to everybody: "I paid the penalty myself. I was separated from God forever in hell, and now I am here free!"
Yes, you don't want to take that option. It's not even a possibility. Here's the only other option:
You trust and rely on what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you on the cross for your salvation. Being God, He is an eternal person and therefore His death on Calvary had an eternal value that satisfied the penalty that God's justice and holiness demanded.
