Many people do not understand that they need Jesus when they feel and behave correctly as much as when they have made mistakes. We always depend on God. We should not look for a security - of non-sinning - in ourselves, in the confidence in the character of our love for God; that security should be based on a confidence in God, in the character of His love for us, that He will save us lest we sin.

Peter believed sincerely that he would remain faithful when he gave the word to Jesus:

"But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all." (Mark 14:31)

Instead to give promise humbly he did it with pride. While wanting to save God's honor he wasn't aware that he himself was to be saved by God. He based the security of his faithfulness upon himself, instead upon the relationship with (dependence on) God, and therefore he renounced him three times that night.

In order to repel many souls from salvation Satan has spread a conviction in Christian world that a sinner should settle himself first; check his heart whether he really wants God or not and make a sincere decision not to make mistakes anymore in order to come to Christ and be accepted by Him such as he is.

While some give up their faithfulness to God because, of course, they do not find such power and wish in their hearts, others really regret for their trespasses and make important decisions but these decisions are falling down like a house of cards when they are to be confirmed in the real life.

They all make a mistake because they are forming the decisions about repentance on a "distance" from Christ, without meeting him. They either fail to find any motives inside themselves to serve to God and therefore give up that idea, or try to form such a decision in the motives they can find and evoke when they are at a distance from Christ.

So they repent out of a feeling of guilt, fair, a hurt self- self-righteousness or on a basis of excited sentimental feelings. However, these kinds of repentance are pseudo-repentance. When they have lost the motive of their "repentance", they will fall into sin again at the first next temptation. Then they repent again, and make mistakes again.

Let us notice what are the motives for man to repent without Christ. Only out of sinful motives: selfishness, fear, excited feelings ... or mere guilt. But this is not a repentance out of true motives. (He would need also a repentance for his sinful motives of repentance.)

In the Church tradition we find advises for repentance:

"The old man advised to cry continually and to think about death: this is the road of repentance, and there is not another road."

Judas repented precisely in that way, after his betrayal, but that did not help him. His repentance was so sincere and deep that he got into a state of self-despair and commitment of suicide, but the sincerity is not sufficient. Real repentance needs true motives.

What are the motives of a real repentance?

"Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)

God accepts a repentance motivated by real love exclusively, and it can be a result of our acquaintance with Christ solely. Only Christ is the source of every good motive and only He Himself can be a repentance to us. In a community with Christ we hate sin. We can choose sin only if we go away from God because He represents a continual repentance for sin to us.

Repentance is given as a gift by God as well as forgiving:

"Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." (Acts 5:30-31)

For repentance we should pray as well as for forgiveness and consecration, because we by our nature do not want to renounce sin.

Many people fear admission of their spiritual helplessness, whereby they prevent Christ from offering them repentance as a gift. They approach Christ telling him: "Lord, I desire to give you my heart!"

They only think that they want to give themselves to Jesus. If they stayed in a peaceful and simple examination of the Gospel and prayer, dealing with Jesus, and not with themselves, they would understand that they do not want Christ at all. Only then would they, gradually, in the light of God's face, succeed to build up a real decision for Christ.

Once, when I asked a believer of one Protestant Church how to come to repentance because I like sin more than Christ, the comments were that I would burn in Hell if I did not repent, etc. That believer wanted to help me immediately and to provoke the repentance in me. When failed to succeed, he said: "You, in fact, don't like the sin! It is just Satan who is attacking you! Deeply in your soul, you love Christ!" I replied to him: "If I liked Christ I wouldn't sin. My feelings are not a criterion of love toward Christ: the criterion is accordance of my life with God's law (John 14:15)!"

We should come to Christ such as we are, with all our sinfulness and guilt to receive repentance from Him.

Let us approach Him with all the discontent of our soul but not because of the discontent. Then, let us ask in our prayer to discover God's face and if our mind is turned to Him we will give Him a motive to act upon us and to have lead us to repentance by His goodness. Repentance is a God's deed and the only thing we can do from our side is to allow it to Him.

Today, many Christians think that the commandments of God are abolished on the cross. We can wonder rightly:

"What do they repent for if they do not repent for the breaking of the law i.e. if they do not repent for the sin which is defined by the breaking of God's law?"

They do not repent for the sin truly, but only for the consequences of the sin, because they have underestimated what only can give them a testimony for the sin - the law.

If we establish a superficial relationship with God, without an effort to get acquainted Him through the demands of His laws, we are going to call sin just the symptoms of our sinful condition (bad relationship with environment, non-balanced behavior..) and we will not understand that sin is the state in which we are. We are going to regret for the symptoms and not for the sinful condition. The cause of sinning will still remain in us, waiting in a temptation just a opportunity for a new manifestation.

We will be saved from the trap of pseudo-repentance by a correct idea about His character, reached through His word, and by a personal encounter with Him during the prayer.

In various Christian tracts we can find "techniques" of repentance and salvation which suggest a sinner to admit his sins and guilt and turn to God for help. With this trick Satan, also, induces people to a pseudo-decision for Christ (pseudo-repentance).

All admissions of sin and guilt and all kinds of repentance which are not a fruit of the community with Jesus have a negative function, regardless of their sincerity. They provoke human arrogance and self- self-righteousness. That is how we can meet believers who always stress that they are only "sinful and mortal people". They see a meritorious value real value in their open admission of sin and guilt.

"No man can of himself understand his errors. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9.) The lips may express a poverty of soul that the heart does not acknowledge. While speaking to God of poverty of spirit, the heart may be swelling with the conceit of its own superior humility and exalted righteousness. In one way only can a true knowledge of self be obtained. We must behold Christ. It is ignorance of Him that makes men so uplifted in their own righteousness. When we contemplate His purity and excellence, we shall see our own weakness and poverty and defects as they really are. We shall see ourselves lost and hopeless, clad in garments of self-righteousness, like every other sinner. We shall see that if we are ever saved, it will not be through our own goodness, but through God's infinite grace." (EGW COL.159)