How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? ~ Galatians 3:3 NLT
Your Christianity begins when you hear the gospel, believe it and embrace it as truth. It doesn't begin with us trying to earn anything from God, but from believing that God did everything for us through Jesus Christ.
He forgave our sins, through Christ shedding his blood. He delivered us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. He made us Complete, through our union with Christ. He justified us through Jesus' resurrection. He made us new creatures, because of Jesus' resurrection. It's by believing in Christ that we are saved. Just as you started your Christianity by trusting Jesus' finished works, continue in such fashion.
The above verse highlights one of the traps that most Christians even today sadly fall for. The belief that since we are now saved by grace, we need to maintain our salvation by our human efforts... We received God's gifts freely but after that we need to work for those gifts. That's not how it works. Yes as Christians we should produce fruits and our lives should reflect our beliefs, but we shouldn't now put our faith in our human efforts for salvation. We should do good acts, acts inspired by the Holy Spirit, from a place of our love for God and his love for us, not from a place of making sure we going to heaven when God pitches.
We are going to heaven. We are already classified as Citizens of Heaven, not because of our human efforts, but because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. We are God's children, we are born of God, we are his heirs, and all that resulted because we placed our faith in Jesus Christ.
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ~ Ephesians 2:8 NLT
May we have zero pride in our human efforts, but may our full confidence for our salvation and right standing with God be in Jesus Christ's accomplishments. If for instance, God was to interview you today and asks, "Why should I let you into heaven", may your answer revolve all around Jesus Christ and all he did for you. Not your works.
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