When you go to a casino, or play the lottery, the money that you risk is real money, and that money when lost to the casino is lost forever and you cannot get it back, though many try again and again to do so, until the game finally ends. In life, whether you recognize it or not, you are gambling, though, not with money, per se, but with your eternal destiny, making this the true gambles of gambles. The first disadvantage that many people suffer from is in their non-recognition, that whatever that they do and perform on this good earth actually does makes an eternal difference. Then there are those that believe somehow that they can cheat the final Judge by all the various types of sleight-of-hand, or legalisms, failing to recognize that there are no shortcuts to Heaven.
There are a fair amount of preachers that preach forgiveness and grace for sins that you have committed deliberately or not, which apparently, can be mitigated by loving much in return, or by sacrificing yourself to a greater good, and so forth; while this certainly has its merit, it is the height of foolishness to really believe that a lifetime of sin and wrong actions, can be made good in the final days or final moments of anyone's life by a few right actions and love, but that judgment is the Lords' only to make, but to rely on such to save oneself is pretty much misguided.
In point of fact, if more people were to be cognizant that everything that we do on a daily basis has consequences and kept this foremost in their mind in which by this knowledge they made better and more conscientious decisions, the world would be a better place to live in. It just isn’t possible, that a world that demonstrates so vividly and so often man's inhumanity to man is actually filled with present day angels, because angels would not behave that way, therefore, we must see the world for what it really is, and endeavor to do our part to make the world a better place by our having been here. Each of us has our part to play; each of us has their role to play, and the better that we are at our endeavors, the greater our joy and the fruits thereof.
Those that act and behave as if life has no meaning, as if life has no purpose, aren't typically going to make good or certainly not the best decisions, which is why it is so important to be educated that life does indeed have meaning, and that life does indeed have consequences, and that these consequences have a direct correlation to ourselves and how we have interacted with those that surround us. This world isn't a "free ride" nor is it unmitigated misery for those that suffer much, there is purpose, of which perhaps because we know so little, we sometimes fail to see it as clearly as we should, but the clearer our vision, the clearer we will see what we should be doing.
Of course, knowing what to do is certainly not the same as doing, as many people have the rather bad habit of stating with confidence one thing, but enacting in actuality something entirely different and way too often that change is one that reflects selfishness at the expense of doing right. This life is your legacy and that legacy lives on well after your life has run its course, to wit, you cannot undo what you have already done, whether right or wrong, therefore do right, for righteousness best gives tribute to He who represents both eternal truth and equitable justice.