Your place in the kingdom of heaven is ready, your room in the Father’s house is prepared, your salvation in heaven awaits you. All you have to do, if you want to receive them, is to make yourself ready. But since no one can do this by his own efforts, we are kept in the power of God by faith. Nobody can keep doing good works in the strength of his own free will. So we must all ask God to help us, so that we may be brought to perfection by the one who made it possible for us to do good works in the first place.

—Bede the Venerable, On 1 Peter

See my reflection about this from Monday.