A very important part of God's goodness is his moral perfection, His holiness. When a sinner considers God's holiness, he cannot help but feel shame and guilt. This reaction is not unfortunate or unnecessary but natural and right. The apostle James talks about the right reaction to one's sinfulness:
James 4:8-10
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
James does not urge his readers to a lighthearted dismissal of their sin but to a deep grief over the wickedness of their living.
In any case, true, godly repentance leads to this behaviour James describes but it is not this behaviour itself. First and foremost, repentance is a change of mind, not feelings of remorse, or the forsaking of sin, or embarking upon a holier life. Repentance may lead to these things, but repentance is not, fundamentally, these things. Repentance is simply altering how one thinks about a thing - in the case at hand, about one's sin.
I make this point because often believers engage in emotional histrionics, weeping and moaning about their sin, they resolve and commit themselves to change, they make public confessions of their wickedness and then they go right back into sin. Why? Because real repentance has not actually occurred. A genuine change of mind about sin has not happened. When actual repentance is achieved, when one's mind is truly changed about one's sin, there is no going back to it. If I'm really, truly convinced that the glass of water before me is tainted with a deadly poison, I will not drink it; if I genuinely believe that my neighbor wants to eat my dog, I'm going to take the necessary precautions to protect my dog from my neighbor; if I think that the enemy sharpshooter will blow my brains out if I poke my head out of my foxhole even for a moment, I will keep my head carefully and fully down, out of sight of the sharpshooter at all times; if I'm fully persuaded that my sin is a terrible affront to God and will bring me to death and destruction, I will leave off it.
Who says what "too much guilt" is? What gives them the right to set a standard for everyone else in this area? Scripture indicates to me that I cannot take sin too seriously and cannot overreact to its damaging effect upon me, upon others and upon my fellowship with God. If anything, we are always inclined to take our sin far too lightly.
