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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: works which do not flow from it.
IV. Now every one can note and tell for himself when he does what
is good or what is not good; for if he finds his heart confident
that it pleases God, the work is good, even if it were so small
a thing as picking up a straw. If confidence is absent, or if he
doubts, the work is not good, although it should raise all the
dead and the man should give himself to be burned. This is the
teaching of St. Paul, Romans xiv: "Whatsoever is not done of or
in faith is sin." Faith, as the chief work, and no other work,
has given us the name of "believers on Christ." For all other
works a heathen, a Jew, a Turk, a sinner, may also do; but to
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