Not Satisfied with Your Repentance?

Not Satisfied with Your Repentance?

by Horatius Bonar

"I am not satisfied with my repentance," you say.

It is well. What should you have thought of yourself had you been so? What pride and self-righteousness would it indicate, were you saying, "I am satisfied with my repentance, - it is of the proper quality and amount." If satisfied with it, what would you do with it? Would you ground your peace upon it? Would you pacify your conscience with it? Would you go with it instead of the blood to a holy God? If not, what do you mean by the desire to be satisfied with your repentance before having peace with God?

In short, you are not satisfied with any of your religious feelings; and it is well that you are not; for, if you were, you must have a very high idea of yourself, and a very low idea of what both law and gospel expect of you. You are, I doubt not, right in not being satisfied with the state of your feelings; but what has this to do with the great duty of immediately believing on the Son of God? If the gospel is nothing to you till you have got your feelings all set right, it is no gospel for the sinner at all. But this is its special fitness and glory, that it takes you up at the very point where you are at this moment, and brings you glad tidings in spite of your feelings being altogether wrong.

- Horatius Bonar

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From God's Way of Peace