You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
The solution to the problem is so simple.
Surrender.
A doctor of theology I have heard many times said that man likes to make it complicated.
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 English Standard Version
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Rephasing the good doctor, “Your intellect won’t save you.”
The only way to end this enmity is to surrender.
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
That haughty attitude trips us up. We like to be right. Who wants to be wrong?
Here is the only way to be right.
Romans 10:3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Philippians 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
Be right with God. Righteousness is a right standing before God and we cannot do that apart from Christ. Surrender to our Savior. It is just that simple.