God tells Israel that they will be judged by their conduct and actions. All the verses about judgment talk about us being judged by the things we do. There’s no record in the Bible of someone being judged and saying that they were washed in the blood or believe in Jesus. They are judged by how they lived.
Now, the blood of Jesus and the love of God covers a multitude of sins. Our sins are removed from us and removed from God’s sight. He’s not going to bring it up.
But if we are living in sin, He can’t not see it unless He turns His face away from us. That’s a really bad thing. We want Him watching over us.
Your actions show your heart. Your actions show if you have been washed and have the Spirit living inside of you. We don’t earn salvation. No one is going to do good works and go to heaven. But if someone’s sins aren’t washed away, they will far outweigh the pitiful good works we do.
And it’s not about the works themselves. It’s about the heart behind them. Serving others because you want to gain heaven for yourself is selfish. There’s no reward in that. Serving others when it can’t give you anything in return is a heart God praises.
Only God can give us a heart that truly loves. God is love, and we need His love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit in order to live a life of love, a life like Jesus.
Do you live for yourself or for God?
We have been trained, in most churches, that we can do both. We can live in the world all week and then serve God on Sundays. People think that volunteering with the kids or helping in the parking lot is their service to God.
Those things can be beautiful services to God when done with the right heart, but we serve God with our whole life, not just on Sunday mornings.
We don’t tithe our money, time, energy, etc. to God. He gets all of it. He gets to do with it as He wishes. That should be your desire, for God to have His way with you, with everything in your life.
Pray and ask Him to. Give it all over to Him, so you are living His life, one that will be praised in judgment.