Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:5,17
The difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world could be summed up in this - Christianity says you don't get to God by being good. As a doctor, I like to think of Christianity as the doctor with a bad diagnosis. Christianity is the doctor who comes in after a battery of tests and says, "there is nothing you can do to fix your disease; you need to surrender to the knife and let us cut it out or you will die." Every other religion/doctor tells you to exercise more, eat healthy, take vitamins, lose weight, quit smoking - you can fix yourself. Christianity says you are too messed up to fix yourself. I'm reminded of my bus boy job as a teenager working at the Ponderosa Steak House. I was a super hard worker bussing and cleaning tables and when the manager called me in to his office one night, I was sure it was to give me praise! Instead he told me that a customer had complained because I was cleaning tables with a dirty rag. I guess all the steak grease had accumulated on my rag that I was failing to change out enough, and all my scrubbing of tables was only making them greasier! Christianity says that we are dirty rags and all our efforts , no matter how hard we try, are not making us clean before God.
So then, where do good deeds fit in to Christianity? Paul says in Romans that we are declared righteous - in right standing with God, rightly related to God - through faith. It is through believing and basing your life on the fact (surrendering to the Doctor's knife) that you can't be good enough to get to God but God sent His Son, Jesus, to be good and sinless in your place and accepting His righteousness on your behalf. He died and through His blood washed away my sins and buried them in the ground and came alive to give me a new clean forgiven life with a robe of righteousness on where I can stand before God, clean. No more dirty rags!
So then, where do good deeds fit in to Christianity? Paul says in verse 5 that he is calling people to obedience or good deeds. I see it like this; if you truly have by faith been forgiven, cleansed, declared righteous, "born again", "saved" ... your life will change. You will start acting like Christ because He has put His Holy Spirit inside of you. Paul didn't come to form a forest full of trees in Rome but an orchard producing fruit in Rome. A changed life of good obedient deeds is the evidence that true conversion has taken place.
Imagine a couple getting married but after the ceremony nothing changes. They retain their same names, don't move in together, don't wear rings, continue to date other people, spend all their time vacationing and hanging out with their friends ... you would question their marriage! If you would ask them, they would name the time and place they got married and might even tear up at the sentimentality of that special day and even produce their marriage certificate, but unless their lives changed after that day, you would have to question the validity of that marriage.
So that's where good deeds come in. God has given us His word to declare to us, among many other things, a "right" way of living. If our lives are not following that pattern of behavior then we have to ask ourself have we really by faith recieved the righteousness of God? If we are Christians our deeds need to show it!
I delight greatly in the Lord;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations. Isa. 61:10,11
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