True Repentance

Repentance is a deep, radical, fundamental, lasting change;
and you will find that, whenever you meet with it in Scripture,
it is always accompanied with sorrow for past sin.

And rest assured of this fact-- that the repentance which has
no tear in its eye, and no mourning for sin in its heart,
is a repentance which needs to be repented of.

In such false repentance, there is no evidence of conversion,
and no sign of the existence of the grace of God.

The man who knows that his sin is forgiven,
does not cease to mourn for it.
No, brethren, his mourning becomes deeper as
his knowledge of his guilt becomes greater.
His hatred of sin grows in proportion as he understands
that love of Christ by which his sin is put away.

In true believers, mourning for sin is chastened and sweetened,
and, in one sense, the fang of bitterness is taken out.

But, in another sense, the more we realize
our indebtedness to God's grace, and the more we see of
the sufferings of Christ in order to effect our redemption,
the more do we hate sin, and the more do we lament
that we ever fell into it.

The man who has led the purest life, when he is brought
before God by the humbling influence of the Holy Spirit,
is the man who almost invariably considers himself
to have been viler than anybody else.

"Repentance is to leave
The sin we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve
By doing so no more."

C.H. Spurgeon