Philippians 3:9. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

The true Christian is only found in Jesus Christ.  He does not have his own righteousness.  The only thing he has is Christ’s righteousness.  He gave up any righteousness he had when he got saved, and like the apostle Paul, he counts any good he tried to do as “dung.”  Self-righteousness does not work with God.  Christ’s righteousness does work with God.  You can only get Christ’s righteousness by faith, and God can give you that faith.  We have nothing of our own.  All we had was our sin when we came to him.

We could not even get the righteousness of Christ until he first paid for our sin.  The blood of Jesus Christ had to cover that sin, and pay for it.  Sin is something you will never be able to pay for by penance, giving to charity, helping old ladies across the street, or any other means of trying to give God your own righteousness.  You cannot undo sin that way.  It takes a blood payment.  Sin cannot be paid for by good works.  God does not want your righteousness anyway.  He wants Christ’s.

Religion has it all backwards.  They think that if I can do enough good, give God my own righteousness, then I will go to heaven.  That is not God’s way.  He wants Christ’s blood to pay for your sin and then He wants to give you Christ’s righteousness.  He then places you into Jesus Christ’s body to seal the transaction.  It only works in that order.  All of the religions of the world boil down to doing something to please a diety by doing good.  That is only self-righteousness, that is having my own righteousness.  God does not want that.  He only wants Christ’s righteousness, and that is all He will accept.