The religion of self-improvement defines righteousness in terms of keeping the rules " The commands in the bible are how we are to live for God"
This is an important concept to realise. The Lord has faith in you and what you are capable of with communion with Him, with your sins forgiven and love alive in your heart.
Some will deny that sin and righteousness matter, it is just condemnation of a struggle that is impossible to win. This is the yeast of the hypocrites who say only hypocracy is the way to walk, because doing the things from the heart is not possible.
And I will agree, without the Lord and love working within these things are impossible. It is why Jesus died upon the cross and seeing this cross with Jesus is the healing of your soul. There is a reason why RCC put Jesus on the cross in their symbols, because this one thing reminds us of the King we follow.
It is obvious though people have started to follow Jesus this is not central to who they are or their experience of Christ.
When Paul says, "I preach Christ Crucified and that alone" he is saying this dedication to love and need is what drives Him.
I have read the testimonies of ex-legalists, saying they gave up trying to be righteous because it was hypocracy.
Then they found Jesus and acceptance. This should have then empowered them to walk in righteousness, not because they had to, but because this is the reality of love and reaching out to others. But what has happened is they are now frozen in defeat and condemn the desire to walk righteously as legalism. So nothing has actually changed just their place on the scales of how they regard the impossibility of it all.
The problems often lie deep in their past and how they are emotionally built. Rather than letting the Lord remake them they are truly defended and unable to change. So whatever position they take, things will always fail.