Our righteousness

In an ideal world, God would accept us on the basis of our works. In an ideal world, we would always and thoroughly act for the glory of God and the good of other people. Our motives would never be mixed. We would never usurp God's place in our lives. We would never esteem ourselves above others.

In other words, we would never sin. We would be perfectly righteous. God would have no reason to keep us away from Him.

But this is not an ideal world. We do sin—everyone does. And no sinful
person's works are acceptable to God as righteous.

But God satisfied His righteous demands in Christ. And He devised a way to enable us to receive Christ's righteousness apart from our sinful works: the way of faith. "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

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"Credited" is a banking term. When Jesus died on the cross, your sins were placed in His account. And when you placed your faith in Him, His righteousness was deposited in your account with God. That transfer is called justification. God sees the faithful "just as if they had never sinned."

Do you believe in Jesus? If so, rejoice! God sees you as righteous because of the righteousness of His Son.