Romans 10: 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.
Just read it more slowly, there's your answer.
Faith in Jesus (salvation) produces obedience. We love Him because He first loved us. So there is an inner change, and as you go, Jesus manifests more in you. This happens because you believed that Jesus is a capable Shepherd and He would bring you to the land of promise, and finish the good work He started in you (Philippians 1:6). In fact, we are told to rest from our works (Hebrews 4) because our works aren't good by default. So your new nature in Christ does things that are normal to this new nature. It becomes a normal thing to help others, and abnormal to turn your head away. So is this "work"? "Lord, when did we see you hungry, visited you??? etc" They aren't aware they did these works because it's the Spirit in them who lived in them and worked.
Trying to earn bargaining chips will never work out well with God. This is buying and selling and God despises this. And it's why salvation is a free gift. There's a lot of talk about winning or losing our "rewards" too, the more I'm looking at it, I am realizing this also isn't Scriptural, the Scripture only talks about works surviving into eternal life vs perishable works that are burnt up. Each worker in the vineyard got the same pay at the end of the day (eternal life).
There is no accumulating merits with God, because there's NOTHING to be gained, aside from God Himself. Loving others is a reward in itself. It's our fleshly minds that expect some extra "rewards". We are so far removed from God's mindset and always want to get something out of things. A few months ago I was looking at "inheritance" in the Bible and I found it said that God Himself is our inheritance, and also we are His inheritance. It comes down to love, and nothing more. People who are not with this program, and want to buy and sell, will be cast out.