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 genuinely grasp the gospel of grace and what God has done for you in Christ, you will find God to be the kindest person you will ever encounter. The Apostle Paul says it is God's grace that makes it possible for you to experience a complete change in your attitudes and actions. God's grace empowers you to conform to the image of Jesus Christ and to live fully in accordance with God’s will (Titus 2:14).

Unfortunately, there isn't enough preaching of the gospel to the world. Most times many Christians are afraid that focusing too much on God's grace and not enough on the need for repentance may lead to sin. The truth is that they have little faith in God's grace to transform lives, which is why they feel the need to balance grace and law in order for believers to avoid sin. This is seen in their attempts to manage sin through behaviour modification sermons and seminars, in which they are influenced by the idea to rely on one's own efforts rather than completely trusting in God's grace for salvation and Christian living.

They live in dread and confusion about losing their salvation rather than living out the truth of their identity in Christ and how complete they are in Him. Often their prayers focus on trying harder or doing better rather than resting in Christ to grow and become the person He created us to be.

You can't live from or for God if you can't appreciate what He's done for you in Christ. Then you're trying to change in order to feel complete, but you're missing out on the truth that you're already complete in Christ, which is why you're 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. Then repentance is the most positive and freeing experience you can have. This is because you are finding what Christ has recovered for you, rather than what Adam lost!