You are scared of the wrong thing. By your logic then Jesus was telling us something that militates against our salvation when He said:
Mark 9:43-48: "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
Revelation 2:10-"be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." (Revelation 2:10b-2:11)
Should we make sure we keep a little sin in our lives and make sure that we don't really follow God wholeheartedly so we don't end up trying to be saved by works? Of course not. The truth is the Bible says we need to be saved by faith that is living, obedient, and is zealous to do right and good works before God. When the Bible speaks of being saved by works in a negative sense it is speaking mainly of abuse of the Mosaic ceremonies as an attempted means of atonement which negate the need for Christ's atonement. And anything we would try to do get into God's favor which would negate our need for Christ's cross would fit in the same category- man seeking to be saved his own way instead of God's appointed way. And this also includes those who think they can just accept Jesus' atonement and not be submitted and obedient to Him. He is Lord as well as Savior; we need to receive him for all that He is or we don't get to be part of His covenant and His atonement will not profit us. It is a false concept that we just trust Jesus and then God makes us new and works good through us without us really trying to please Him and/or without us thinking we really don't need to please Him. No, we have to prove we choose to serve the Lord, renounce the devil, and believe in the Lord to the point of actually living by His commandments. Is that salvation by works? That is actually salvation by faith- otherwise God's grace is just a license to try to serve Him on our own terms and not really have to let Christ's cross break our independence and stubbornness against God's righteous authority. The Lord wants broken, faithful subjects who tremble at His Word and do His will without self-imposed conditions- not unfaithful, half-hearted people who straddle the fence and delve into the devil's territory when their flesh is uncomfortable doing things the Lord's way.
The solution then to your dilemma is to renounce any thought in yourself that you deserve His favor and agree with the self-evident truth that you would go to hell if you got what you deserved. Even if you were totally faithful every day the rest of your life you would still be eternally indebted for how you've already turned from Him and incurred His just wrath against you. Your submission to His law and commitment to please Him needs to happen for you to be saved, but it is not a matter of making your own atonement- it is a matter that no one can be in God's favor and justified before him who is not submitted to His authority and in line with His law. Christ's atonement doesn't give us a way to get around that; it gives us a way to come back to that place of submission and to be accepted though legally we ought to die anyways. Just look at the examples of the righteous and the wicked in the Bible and you'll see this truth illustrated. No one was justified before they repented and sided wholeheartedly with God's Law (which included the demand to have atonement for sin done God's way). Those who understood God's justification right and cooperated with Him strove to please Him to show that they renounced their sin, didn't believe the enemy's lie that God's commandments don't have our best interest behind them, that they wanted the true God to be their God, and that they chose to make His interests and values their own. We should want to follow them because they ultimately followed Christ, that is a necessary aspect of working out our own salvation, and those who won't do so remain God's enemies in the realm of Satan's darkness. It is a false piety that is sadly very common which claims that our complying with God's own instructions and directions opposes Jesus. That is a concept which is foreign to Scripture.
"Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." (
Isaiah 66:1-2)
