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Not sorry enough to be saved?

There’s no “right” amount of repentance for salvation—because your salvation doesn’t depend on you at all.
Picture of Greg Stier
Greg Stier

Have you ever wondered if you feel guilty enough over your sin to come to Christ?

Do you think you don’t feel enough contrition over your sin to be genuinely saved?

Are you worried you haven’t mourned enough over your transgressions to trust in Him?

A dangerous distraction

Could it be that Satan has tricked you into thinking this to distract you from the simplicity of the Gospel?

Listen to the words of the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon titled “Struggles of Conscience”:

In our day the evil has taken another, and that a most extraordinary shape. Men have aimed at being self-righteous after quite a singular fashion; they think they must feel worse, and have a deeper conviction of sin before they may trust in Christ.

Many hundreds do I meet with, who say they dare not come to Christ and trust Him with their souls, because they do not feel their need of Him enough; they have not sufficient contrition for their sins; they have not repented as fully as they have rebelled!

Brethren, it is the same evil, from the same old germ of self-righteousness, but it has taken another and I think a more crafty shape. Satan has wormed himself into many hearts under the garb of an angel of light, and he has whispered to the sinner, ‘Repentance is a necessary virtue; stop until you have repented, and when you have sufficiently mortified yourself on account of sin, then you will be fit to come to Christ, and qualified to trust and rely on Him.’

Christ’s work is all that matters

Come to Jesus as you are, with all your sin, with a total inability to turn from it or erase it on your own, with whatever amount of grief over sin you have, whether it be great or little or whether it seems like none. Then transfer your trust from yourself to Jesus. Place your faith fully in Him and His finished work on the cross on your behalf.

He will cleanse you from your sin and save you. He will begin the lifelong work of turning you from your sin and sanctifying you. Your salvation doesn’t depend on the heights of your contrition over your present sin or the depths of your grief over past transgressions. What matters is depending on Christ and His atoning work on the cross in your place for your sin.

As it’s written in John 3:16-18:

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Your salvation doesn’t have anything to do with how you feel—it’s all about trusting in what Christ has already done. Just come as you are and let Him do the rest. His sacrifice is sufficient!

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