A Unique Way of Salvation

All the religions of the world - including many perverted forms of Christianity - make our salvation (or enlightenment or whatever) dependant upon what we do. If we do the right things, if we live a good enough life, then we are acceptable to God.

The problem with this is that there are degrees of goodness. How good is good enough as God? Does "good enough" mean better than Adolf Hitler? Better than the person next door? Better than Mother Theresa?

Christians believe that none of us can leave a life good enough to please God. So the radical element of Christianity is this: Jesus lived the perfect life instead of us. We attain salvation not by earning it, but by trusting Jesus to save us.

So while in other religions people do good works in order to reach salvation (that is, people do good or right things to reach heaven or nirvana or whatever), Christians do good works because they have been saved.