Hard as it is to grasp, the ultimate deciding factor in salvation and fellowship with God, is not what we do but what we think and feel. That is why the question is not, for example, "Was I baptized the right way, for the right reasons and by the right preacher?". Every question relating to baptism is secondary to the question of the state of heart in the seeker of salvation. God grants salvation on the basis of what is in the heart, not on the nature of one's actions. In salvation and sanctification, actions are secondary to the condition of the heart. This places salvation and sanctification in the grace/faith/love area rather than in the works/law/obedience area.
The true validity of God's law is beyond than the mere letter. Obedience is more than simply doing what the law requires. Obedience is not an action issue: it is a heart issue. No work is ever good enough to contribute to our salvation from sin because every work we are capable of performing is contaminated by sin, weakness and ignorance. True submission to God requires that we do what we do because we love Him and relate to Him on the basis of grace rather than works.
If salvation is "by grace through faith, " (Ephesians 2:8-10 and many other verses), then being saved is never a matter of what we do or of what we fail to do. If faith is in the heart God promises to save. One may have faith in Jesus yet be totally ignorant of His command that we be baptized. One may have faith in Jesus without any knowledge of tithing, communion, worship etc. God saves a believer from sin if he sees faith in his heart, not if He sees correct actions. God rewards one's love and faith, regardless of the point one may have reached on the obedience scale. If the heart is right all actions will eventually fall into full alignment with God's desires. Those who say, salvation does not come at all until one goes down into the water of baptism, place supreme importance on the outward act, making salvation a matter of works. Regardless of their protestations, they have abandoned grace in favor of obedience and teach a heretical doctrine, (cf. Galatians 1:8,9; 5:4; Ephesians 2:8, 9). It is pure legalism.
Works are never good enough to contribute to salvation from sin or to fellowship with God. Works do not define or control our relationship with God either before or after salvation. All our works are infected by sin. Our present sin-infected works cannot save us from our past sin-infected works. And if our sin-infected works cannot save us from our past sins, then how is it possible for our sin-infected works to keep us saved? If all our works are infected by sin, and sin is the very thing we must be saved from, then it is impossible to offer infected works as a basis of receiving salvation from that very infection.
On the reverse side, if sin-infected works caused God to send Jesus to die for us, then sin-infected works will not cause God to reject us. Our works, either of obedience or disobedience, are not the basis of our relationship with God. We must offer any act of obedience to God in a conscious recognition of the inherent worthlessness of the act itself, due to its imperfection. That applies to baptism, communion, tithing, prayer, reading the Word, fasting, witnessing, feeding the poor or anything, without exception, that we might offer to God. In anything we do we must trust that God will see our faith and love, and apply grace to our inherently worthless act. If we approach God that way, He will apply Christ's blood to the taint on our works and accept them in spite of their inherent unacceptability. God is not impressed with anything we know or do. Like a prospector sifting through dirt and debris to find a gold nugget, God brushes past every work we offer Him to see if the gold of faith and love is behind it. And He will do with us exactly what He did with the woman who came into the temple to drop two coins into the treasury. Jesus said she gave more than all the others who contributed great amounts of money. Not the size of her gift but the size of her heart impressed God.
The contaminated nature of our works renders them impotent as a saving factor. We cannot be saved by works and we cannot be condemned by works. The negative side of this equation must be strongly emphasized because it is the side that hurts us the most. If grace is grace it applies to both the positive and negative sides of this equation. Infected works can neither save nor condemn. If God saves us by grace from sinful actions, then turns around and condemns us again because of sinful actions, where has grace gone? If the sinfulness of our works brings condemnation, grace is lost. Bad works cannot condemn us any more than bad works can save us. We must apply grace to both sides or refuse to apply it at all. If we say I must stop doing bad works so God will accept me, then we are saying that God accepts us only if our works are good. That is the very essence of works-righteousness. It is pure legalism. It is heresy.
We will never have peace in our relationship with God until we put aside works both good and bad as any basis either for receiving or losing His favor. We have no good works. Everything we do is infected with sin. All our works are imperfect, therefore "bad." We cannot obey God perfectly. It is that very infection/imperfection that makes the blood of Jesus necessary. Let us abandon all our works, both good and bad, and come to Jesus simply asking for mercy based on His love. This will bring His favor and forgiveness.
Is rebellion in our heart; unconcern for the good of others, disregard of God? Or is there a fundamental desire in our heart to do good to others and to love God? Does God see that our evil act did not arise from rebellion but from ignorance or weakness? In such cases God exercises grace and applies the constantly available blood of Jesus to forgive us and maintain fellowship with us, (1 John 1:7-10). Bad deeds will not keep us from being saved, and bad deeds will not keep us from enjoying fellowship with God. Both before and after salvation, all our deeds must be washed in the blood of Jesus. This washing is provided for all whose hearts are right. When we say Father look down on us and wash us in Jesus' blood from all defilement and uncleanness, we are asking Him to examine our heart and forgive us of all wrong motives, rebellion, fear, doubt, etc., and to remove all such evil from our hearts. Those are the things that defile us.
Outward deeds do not defile us!