You have to read this admonition of St. Paul carefully: work out your salvation with fear and trembling. The Apostle does NOT mean that we earn our salvation by working hard at saying prayers and doing good deeds. The real work is not adding more spiritual activities in our lives but in subtraction — which is what Jesus is driving at when he says we must renounce all our possessions. The work is to subtract from our lives all those things that ordinarily occupy us in order to create an empty space which God can fill. We must subtract resentment from our lives so God can fill us with forgiveness. We must subtract selfishness and greed from our lives so God can bestow charity upon us.
