What Sort of Grief?

Before I was born again, I had been acquainted with the gospel for quite a while. But the element that finally grabbed my heart was my depravity. For the very first time, I become painfully aware of my sin, my desire for sin, and my inability to turn from that sin. Strangely it was not the cross that made me aware of my sin, but the thought that my creator had made me for more, and that I had rejected Him.

I reacted like Burroughs on pg. 238 "I see that by my sin such a breach was made between God and my soul that all the angels in heaven and men in the world could never make up this breach." And I changed. God had drawn me so that I would thenceforth have a tremendous desire to maintain relationship with Him.

I know many other who have been grieved by their sin, but in a much more cross centered way.

They say with Burroughs (on pg. 242),"Oh! Let me never have to do with such sin that was the cause of such sufferings to my Savior, who shed His blood."

Now, it seems plain to me that grief over sin is absolutely essential to not only the conversion experience, but to the sanctification process. But I sometimes wonder, what sort of grief should we experience? Is there not a sense in which our current sins are entirely paid for, but may still have consequences, particularly in our relationship with God? In this case, is it possible that we should not feel grief because we have sent Christ to the cross, but because the cross is a picture of how much was needed to fix the breach between myself and God?