Nothing stops me from doing anything but I did none of those things prior to following Jesus. So the notion of the motivation behind works is important to under

Nothing stops me from doing anything but I did none of those things prior to following Jesus. So the notion of the motivation behind works is important to understand. Also I typically give myself a B- to a C+ for what I do. I'm not always great at it. Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is just work. Faith and works is a living faith supported by a living God. If you have faith but do nothing in response then you should work that out. If you have no faith and works Jesus says that you already got your reward and you're all set. He has nothing to give you. I pretty much summed up the book of James in the Bible. As for the afterlife everyone who follows Jesus gets a pretty awesome deal and while there is some hinting at a bonus for doing well it's not really that interesting because level 1 heaven is pretty awesome. There is a law of diminishing marginal utility after all. So to be clear works get you little and faith is the source of everything.