Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Romans 2:4 (ESV)

 

If you truly comprehend the gospel of grace and what God has done for you in Christ, you will discover God to be the most compassionate person you have ever met. According to the Apostle Paul, God's grace enables you to experience such a transformation in your attitudes and actions that you conform to the image of Jesus Christ and live fully in accordance with God's will (Titus 2:14).

There is insufficient preaching of the gospel to both the church and the world.

Most Christians are concerned that focusing too much on God's grace and not enough on the need for repentance will lead to sin. They live in fear and confusion about losing their salvation rather than experiencing the reality of their identity in Christ and how complete they are in Him. This is seen in their attempts to manage sin by behaviour modification, which involves relying only on one's own efforts rather than truly trusting in God's grace for salvation and Christian living.

You cannot live from or for God if you cannot appreciate what He has done for you in Christ. Then you are trying to change to feel complete, but you are missing out on the truth that you are already complete in Christ, which is why you are changing.

Change, according to the gospel, is about forgetting your old identity (which was never your "real" self) and finding yourself in Christ by faith. As a result, transformation is a consequence of God's kindness rather than a cause to receive God's kindness. This makes repentance the most uplifting and liberating experience you can have. This is because you are discovering what Christ has recovered for you, rather than what Adam has lost!