Repentance will not make you see Christ; but to see Christ will give you repentance.
Interpretation
Understanding Christ leads to true repentance, rather than seeking repentance first.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of perceiving Christ in order to genuinely experience repentance. It suggests that a deep understanding of Christ's nature and teachings naturally fosters a change in the heart, leading to true remorse for one's actions and the desire to change, rather than trying to achieve repentance in a superficial manner.
In practice
During a church sermon, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of faith in the process of repentance.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time.
How small life is here and how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bow their heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’s silence in a circle dance
Eating, drinking, dying - three primary manifestations of the universal and impersonal life. Animals live that impersonal and universal life without knowing its nature. Ordinary people know its nature but don't live it and, if they think seriously about it, refuse to accept it. An enlightened person knows it, lives it, and accepts it completely. He eats, he drinks, and in due course he dies - but he eats with a difference, drinks with a difference, dies with a difference.
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
The news automatically becomes the real world for the TV user and is not a substitute for reality, but is itself an immediate reality.
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