The motive is the key. Do you do good things because you want to look good or do you do them because you want God to be pleased with your life.
To me, both motives are selfish. The only difference is the size of the payoff. Yet, according to what many are saying here, some person who does good deeds for others because it's the right thing to do, and without expectation of reward, but can't get over conceptual hangups over the veracity of multi-thousand year old culturally biased texts open to much interpretation, is consigned to eternal damnation and torture. I can't reconcile that in my head.
The Bible also teaches us to do our good deeds without the other person knowing or anyone else. If you practice that then it wipes away any selfishness. Hard to be secretive about opening a door for someone or something like that but sometimes people just need to see there are still some that like doing acts of kindness. It used to be more of a way of life for people but we seem to be letting that slip away. I enjoy being helpful. If I mow my neighbors yard while he's gone and nobody tells him it's all the same to me. It boils down to this for me. Where did good traits come from in the very beginning? Yes mankind has passed them down but at some point there was the very first man so who taught him? For me the Bible answers that. So if you personally do good most likely you want the same from others. Doing good is a reward in itself. It promotes a better world. I realize some don't want that and that's why we have bad. We promote what's in our hearts.
