So even though that is Christianity's message, Christianity's metagame means if you take it seriously, you don't actually have to put in the work. You're still going to Heaven because grace is through faith and not works.
So even though that is Christianity's message, Christianity's metagame means if you take it seriously, you don't actually have to put in the work. You're still going to Heaven because grace is through faith and not works.
James 2:14-20, 26 (NET) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that – and tremble with fear. But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
I think this is the point being made: your 'should', and by extension your quote, has no meaning when grace is defined as the single goal of spiritual life, and then is reduced to a simple transaction.
The term we have for those folks is that they're doing "easy-believism" and it's broadly a pitfall within Christianity. It's not considered normative to so heavily lean on grace in the way that you're describing
This is further reflected in the biblical distinction between the visible and invisible church and Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: genuine followers and the others grow together until the final judgment.
So, many people know that only a small minority of “Christians” are actually faithful followers of Jesus (i.e. regularly read Scripture and live in obedience to it). And, some estimates place this number as low as 1%.