What makes deeds...good?

If I really believe what you say, that salvation is absolutely by free grace, and I don’t have to be good at all…I don’t even have to [work] up my heart into some kind of good state at all…I have no incentive to live a good life.

Here’s the proper response:

If when you lose all fear of punishment, you also lose your incentive to live a good life, then the only incentive you had to live a good life was fear.

Here’s the ironic thing. The fear is selfish. Fear is always selfish…

“Because I might lose, I better be good.” Well, what is goodness? Goodness is unselfish living, unselfish service to God, unselfish service to the poor, unselfish service to my neighbor…

"I’m scared that I might be lost unless I’m good…" And what is goodness? Being unselfish. But don’t you realize that’s incredibly selfish?

When you live a good life so that God will bless you and take you to heaven, it’s by definition not good.

Because it’s all for you. You’re not helping the poor. You’re helping yourself. You’re not helping God. You’re helping yourself.

If you think your unselfish good deeds are good…and therefore God owes you something, then they are no good. They’re not good by definition. They’re not good by your own definition. Your selflessness is really selfishness.

But.

If you say, “Oh my good deeds are worthless. I need to be saved by grace! I am saved by grace. Now I want to please God. I want to resemble God. I want to delight in God. I want to get near God…”

Well how do I do that?  

By serving him…By serving other people…

If you think your good deeds are good, they’re no good. But if you think your good deeds are absolutely worthless and you’re saved by grace, that makes your deeds good.

So if you think they’re good, they’re no good. If you think they’re no good, they’re good. They start to get good. Because you see when you realize they’re worthless and therefore you’re doing them just to please God, they’re actually for God. They’re actually for the person you’re helping…

You see why C.S. Lewis said, the reason he knew that Christianity must be true is that when he actually looked at it he realized that nobody could have ever thought this up.

- Tim Keller