Wow...
"True
repentance has a distinct and constant reference to the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you repent of sin without looking to Christ, away with your
repentance. If you are so lamenting your sin as to forget the Savior,
you have a need to begin all this work over again. Whenever we repent
of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross; or,
better still, let us have both eyes upon Christ, seeing our sin
punished in him, and by no means let us look at sin except as we look
at Jesus. A man may hate sin just as a murder hates the gallows but
this does not prove repentance if I hate sin because of the punishment,
I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just.
But if I can see sin as an offense against Jesus Christ, and loathe myself because I have wounded him, then I have a true brokenness of heart. If I see the Savior and believe that those thorns upon his head were put there by my sinful words; if I believe that those wounds in his heart were made by my heart-sins; if I believe that those wounds in his feet were made by my wandering steps, and that the wounds in his hands were made by my sinful deeds, then I repent after a right fashion. Only under the cross can you repent. Repentance elsewhere is remorse, which clings to the sin and only dreads the punishment. Let us then seek, under God, to have a hatred of sin caused by a sight of Christ's love."
-Charles Spurgeon
But if I can see sin as an offense against Jesus Christ, and loathe myself because I have wounded him, then I have a true brokenness of heart. If I see the Savior and believe that those thorns upon his head were put there by my sinful words; if I believe that those wounds in his heart were made by my heart-sins; if I believe that those wounds in his feet were made by my wandering steps, and that the wounds in his hands were made by my sinful deeds, then I repent after a right fashion. Only under the cross can you repent. Repentance elsewhere is remorse, which clings to the sin and only dreads the punishment. Let us then seek, under God, to have a hatred of sin caused by a sight of Christ's love."
-Charles Spurgeon