Doing and being good does not save you!
English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Dead works are the works of our hands. These are works of selfrighteousness , and they are appropriately called "dead" works because they lead to death. Twice the book of Proverbs says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death" (14:12; 16:25). We rely on work. We get significance from our work. We like a job that is well done. And well we should, because God created us to work. Yet all of our labors are useless, and thus dead, if they do not point to the worship of God. Any significance and esteem we attain from our labor apart from the end of bringing God glory and establishing His rule upon the earth is misplaced. Such godless labor may appear good to us and even receive the applause of others, but heaven finds it repulsive and defiled by sin. In other words, unless we have been washed in the blood of Christ , all our good deeds are worthless, useless, vain, and dead.