Belief

 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
Romans 4:5 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/rom.4.5.ESV

When we trust in Jesus, we don't need to work to earn our forgiveness, because it's all been achieved for us by the blood of Christ. All we need to do is to believe in Him. Religious people slave away to try and earn God's favour. Christians have received God's favour by His Son, so we can relax.

Righteousness isn't something we have to conjour up from within. All our righteousness is like autumn leaves. Righteousness needs to be something we receive from the Lord Jesus Christ.

By nature, we are ungodly. 'False and full of sin' we are, God is all righteousness. We need Christ's perfect righteousness to be credited to our bankrupt spiritual accounts.

All we contribute to our righteousness is the faith to believe that God can give us in in the Lord Jesus. God gives graciously to those who ask Him without finding fault. We just need to trust and not doubt.

'God Almighty, thank You that ungodly sinners like us can be made righteous, through faith in Your Son, in His name we pray, amen'

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