I wonder what your understanding of the word repent is. Often, what is taken for the meaning of repent is to 'turn from sin' but this is not a biblical definition at all. Repent is one thing, turn is another.
Repent means, in short, to change ones mind about sin. In otherwords, to see one's sin in the same way as God sees it. To see it in all its wickedness and to move from a place of loving the sin to hating, loathing the sin because one recognizes it as evil.
The turning is what happens as a result of the repentance. If you don't see your sin as evil, you'll continue in it. But if you see it as an abhorrent thing, you will turn away from it and do it no more.
This happens only when the Spirit of God comes in and allows us to see the gravity of our sin. There is certainly the case where we are believers, but we do not see 'all' of our sins as grievous and we continue in them. Then, as time goes by, God will give us light in an area of our life and we are grieved by it. We repent and then we turn. Then God will work on the next thing.
Clearly, the first work of repentance for a believer must be that he sees the grievous nature of not trusting God with his life and the grievous nature of denying the sufficency of Christ's blood sacrifice on the cross to be propitiation(attonement) for his sin. Often, when the Holy Spirit accomplishes this work in the heart of the believer, He also accomplishes additonal repentance at the same time, but this is the first step.
Have you gotten that far?
It sounds like we have the same definition but the term I use is "a change of mind that leads to a change of action." You must change your mind about something in order to change your actions, but it is a 180 degree turning from sin, but the initial repentance needed is the change of mind and the actions will follow it if is true repentance.
With certain sins in my life I truly hate them, and all sins I want to cut out of my life, however, I feel like if I truly hated them then I wouldn't give into certain sins in my life so much. I understand that it is a sanctifying process but the sins I'm dealing with it seems when most have genuine faith it is one of the first things that go. And the sin I am talking of is one that is deliberately accomplished and if are truly saved it's impossible to deliberately go on sinning, or making a practice of sin which is why I question my repentance.
Although I have a question for you. Repentance towards sins seems to be something that happens AFTER conversion because when you are saved you are new creature and this is when you begin to hate sin. The repentance that is referred to so often in the Bible is repentance to BELIEVE in the gospel. They were calling people from their false Gods and wrong ways and to admit they were sinful people and to turn to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. So it seems that repentance needed for salvation is simply admitting that you are sinful and trusting in Christ to accomplish your forgiveness. Then once this happens you are a new creature and you will begin repenting of your sins.
IF it is a change of mindset towards sin then you can constantly question your repentance you can wonder if you truly repented and your assurance no longer lies on Christ but if your repentance is genuine.
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