Here are a couple more texts that ought to give one pause:
Jam 3:1 My brothers, do not be many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
Heb 10:26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, Heb 10:27 but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
My question about being worried about one's salvation is absolutely NOT out of line.
Who among us does not pray to God each and every day that we are doing His will? Who among us doesn't pray that we are using our gifts to give Him glory? There is a whole lot of responsibility in what we are doing here.
Lots of people fail to recognize that we will indeed be judged. We will be judged by a known standard. Did any of you wonder why there are uniform standards of measure in the OT? Are they there only or the purpose of commerce? Or is there a greater meaning?
Lev 19:35 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures and weights, or in quantity.
Are we to assume that God is not going to be righteous in our judgment? Has God hidden His standards or are we blessed with the knowledge of them through His Word?
This is NOT salvation through works. Salvation through works assumes that God does NOT want us to be saved! It assumes that it is impossible to please God, but if we accumulate enough good "merits", the He has no choice but to let us in. This of course is poppycock. God desires that we be saved:
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Joh 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
It says "might be saved" FRiends, not "will be saved".
Since the subject is the kosmos, are you saying that it might not have been saved?