Rembrant’s Return of the Prodigal

The believer in Christ is a ‘lifelong’ repenter. He begins with repentance, and ends with repentance. Repentance is a change of mind regarding sin and God, an inward turning from sin to God. Repentance is hating what you once loved, and loving what you once hated, exchanging irresistible sin for an irresistible Christ.

— Jim Elliff

Repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness. It is what we do because we have been forgiven. It is an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness.
— Paul Kooistra

True repentance is always accompanied by sorrow… The man who knows that his sin is
forgiven does not cease to mourn for it. No, brothers, 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.
— Charles Spurgeon

Godly sorrow springs from a view of a suffering Savior, and manifests itself by . . .
hatred of sin, groaning over our backslidings, grief of soul for being so often entangled by our lusts and passions, and is accompanied by . . . softness, meltings of heart, flowings of love to the Redeemer, indignation against ourselves, and earnest desires never to sin more.
— J. C. Philpot