No, When it comes to the law, God judges by results. "If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands, the Lord will set you high above all nations on earth (Deuteronomy 28:1)." Later, it says, "However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you (Deuteronomy 28:15)."
That's to be "under the law", old covenant, not under grace.
Your best effort is not good enough.
Exactly-only
with God can we hope to be who we were created to be. Adam, incidentally, missed that point.
God is not grading on a curve. My marching orders are to rest in the obedience of Jesus Christ on my behalf. You are being disobedient to God. This is what the author of Hebrews said, "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience (Hebrews 4:11)." You are following the disobedient example of the Jews with your half-hearted attempts at obeying the law. When you stand before God are you going to say, "I did the best I could" to enter heaven? Paul has your answer. "For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh though I myself has reasons for such confidence if someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of The Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee, as for Zeal, persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ (Philippians 3:3-7)." Are you better than Paul in your obedience to the law? Because if you are, it still won't enough. Stop putting confidence in your flesh.
The Law is holy, righteousness, good, and spiritual (Rom 7), but
we're not spiritual, to begin with, as fallen beings. Which is why we need the Spirit in order to fulfill the law. "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). So we're judged by the Law which cannot justify us (Rom 2:13). And the only way that the law is truly fulfilled is to the extent that we love, God and neighbor, because love excludes sin and fulfills the law by its nature. And the only way to "appropriate" this love is by fellowship with its Source and this relationship is entered into via faith. This means to
know God, directly, personally, a relationship which begins now but is only full consummated in the next life (1 Cor 13:12). This is the knowledge spoken of in Jer 31:34 and this is why Jesus came, to reveal the true face of God so that we may know Him, and by knowing Him we may believe in Him, and by knowing and believing we may come to hope/trust in and, ultimately and most importantly, to love Him. Then our justice or righteousness would be complete. To truly come to know God
is to love Him.
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3
Are you better than Paul in your obedience to the law? Because if you are, it still won't enough. Stop putting confidence in your flesh.
I don't. I put my faith in the Spirit, Whom I must cooperate with. So Like Paul I can say,
"I consider them [past deeds as a Pharisee] garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Phil 3:8-14
