True repentance will always cost you something. It will always cost you something.
If you struggle with the sin of pornography and you feel bad about it but you don’t make the necessary sacrifices to remove it from your life, you have not repented.
If you struggle with overeating and gluttony and you feel bad about it but you aren’t willing to deprive yourself of that extra plate, you have not repented.
If you struggle with materialism and greed and maybe you feel bad about it but you aren’t willing to give up your stuff for the sake of finding superior satisfaction in Christ, then you haven’t repented.
And we could go on and on.
This makes sense of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10:
“And now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you felt the sorrow that God had intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
If all you do is feel sorry for what you’ve done, but you never do anything about it, then you are experiencing worldly sorrow. And that sorrow will not lead you to life, you will go to hell with your pornography and your food and your money.
But if it is godly sorrow that you feel, then according to Paul, this kind of sorrow will produce repentance “without regret.” Meaning what you turn from in your repentance, what you give up, what you cut out of your life as a means of your repentance, you won’t regret it. Because when you cast those idols out of your life, if you make war against them and crush them, then that space is filled with the presence of God and you will truly see how cheap those idols were and how superior He is to everything that you were giving yourself to.