Repentance is, despite its oneness in essence, different in form according to the persons in whom it takes place and the circumstances in which it takes place. The way upon which the children of God walk is one way but they…have varying experiences. What a difference there is in the conversion of Manasseh, Paul and Timothy! How unlike are the experiences of a David and a Solomon, a John and a James! And that same difference we encounter also outside of Scripture in the life of the church fathers, of the reformers, and of all the saints. The moment we have eyes to see the richness of the spiritual life, we do away with the practice of judging others according to our puny measure. There are people who know of only one method, and who regard no one as having repented unless he can speak of the same spiritual experiences which they have had or claim to have had. But Scripture is much richer and broader than the narrowness of such confines…The true repentance does not consist of what men make of it, but of what God says of it. In the diversity of providences and experiences it consists and must consist of the dying of the old and the rising of the new man.
—Herman Bavinck, quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 134-135.
Repentance isn’t so much a set number of steps to changing behavior as it is seeing Christ increasingly clearly, and so turning from ourselves to Him, over and over until we see Him face to face. There are as many different stories of how our sanctification has progressed as there are stories of how we first came to know Christ as Savior and King—that is to say, as many as there are followers of the Lord Jesus. The key isn’t so much how we come to repent, but that we come to repent, and keep on repenting until we reach the full measure of Christ.
Life and Godliness 