I grew up going to church but I’m not religious now and I never really understood this part.
Please, no answers along the lines of “aha, that’s why Christianity is a sham” or “religions aren’t logical”. I don’t want to debate whether it’s right or wrong, I just want to understand the logic and reasoning that Christians use to explain this.
I come from a protestant tradition that says you can’t ever be good enough to be saved. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life and acted as a substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf to make us righteous before God. All the work of salvation is done through Christ. If salvation required anything other than faith to save ourselves (e.g. being good), then his death and resurrection would be meaningless. So once we are made righteous by God through faith, God begins the work of sanctification (being made holy and more Christlike). We don’t believe this will fully happen in this life but is a process that we go through as we walk with God.
TLDR: It isn’t about doing good things to be saved but rather we’re saved and slowly begin to orient our lives around doing good things.