Saving repentance, for the Christian, also comes with a perception, or as Port says, an apprehension, of the mercy of God in Christ. If we end up with our guilt, we end in despair. But if our repentance leads us to comprehend and experience the mercy, and love of God to us in Christ, then we have experienced saving repentance. Obviously, what Port and we have been dwelling on is saving repentance, or the saving element in repentance where we become united with Christ in His death and Resurrection. But what most of us experience daily is the need for ongoing repentance.
Ongoing repentance is the continual process of sorrow for our sins by confession and repentance.
Like saving repentance, ongoing repentance also exhibits a change of mind. In ongoing repentance we repent of those things we do, think or desire that are not in keeping with the change of mind we had when we repented for the first time. Repentance is ongoing because we are always understanding better and seeing clearer what is required of a Child of God. Ongoing repentance endeavors to purify and strengthen that initial change of mind that we first experienced when we were first saved by the grace of God. May we all grow and learn more and more where those needed areas of ongoing repentance exist in our lives.