I relate well to what you are saying. My view of my sin is so immense that I know I breathe it out of every pore of my body, and it would be as a stentch to God, were it not for the fragrance of Christ covering it. If I examine my heart, I find sin to be a love/hate relationship, with the love part very much alive in greater or less degrees to various sins, and the hate part is present though not easily seen. As I've said before, the reason why we sin is because we don't love Jesus enough. Certainly we lament our condition before the Lord. But, we must always be honest about our condition before him. I must never give an inaccurate assessment. God intends for us to have such accuracy, and will rebuke our stubbornness towards it with a greater aliveness of our sins' reality. We must come to the place where we accurately view ourselves as nothing but a fountain of sin, a factory that only produces sin all of the time, and yet a fountain that has now been tapped into by another source, namely that of grace, which bears fruit in its season. His infusion of the principle of grace into our souls begins only as a spark, like a small candle in the middle of the ocean, like a small stream breaking its channel into an old river, and the process of renewal begins. Our faculites of the mind, will, and affections that were once corrupted and owned by the principle of sin have now been invaded by the principle of grace. They are no longer dominated by one principle, but are influenced by two, and so sin no longer "reigns" or is the absolute ruler there. The Holy Spirit has intruded, and is now weilding influence as well.

It's okay to admit that there are times that you do not hate sin. In fact, if you were to say that there were not times like that, then I would be worried; for then your sanctification would already be complete and you would have already experienced glorification, which is not possible. It is not at all strange that we see that we still have a liking towards sin. It's more strange that we don't admit it, and yet it is not so strange. Paul admitted it. Yet, we grow up in a christian society where we are taught that christians live on some sort of a higher level than unbelievers; that if they admit to these sinful desires that they still have, then they are admitting that they live on a level of defeat. But, justification does not lead to instant sanctification. Sanctification assumes the cancer in us is still a present reality. If it were not present, then we would not need to be sanctified anymore.

None of this leads to sin being now permissable. This isn't promoting satisfaction with our condition. But, it is expressing the reality of it. God already knows we don't love him as we should, and that we still gravitate to sin. Otherwise, why would we need commands and instruction/warnings to do different? The commands do not reveal our ability, but rather the goal, and admit that we are still far off from arrival. God knows we are still distant from that goal. He knows our love and obedience is still mostly corrupted with sin, most of which we don't see but he does. In fact, if he were to measure it, our love and obedience to him would be measured according to what we would do if we had no command from him to do anything. Would we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength if it were permissable for us not to? Would love for God flow from our beings naturally, simply because it was our character and nature to love only God in the infinite degree? Would he be the only object of our affection and desire simply because our affections and desires naturally flow and our bent in that direction, just as a river naturally flows to the left or the right because that is the way its channel is contoured or bent? This is what it means by "writing the law upon our hearts." It becomes our nature to exhibit it, to where no command or law is necessary to compel us or direct us to exhibit it. It's like an apple tree bearing apples instead of oranges. It needs no command to restrain it to not do so, nor does it need a command for it to do so, for it does so naturally, as it's nature compels it to.

The reality is, the channel of our river is still very much bent and contoured towards sin, as believers. That's why it takes rules and regulations to keep us in check, and to stifle the flow of our river. Many read scripture and pray because it is a necessary discipline. But, do we watch TV because it is a necessary discipline? Do we nap on the couch because it is a necessary discipline? Do we go fishing or do we eat our favorite food out of discipline? If we only did exactly what we wanted to do all of the time, what would we do?

These kinds of thoughts cause me to cry out, "O wretched man that I still am, who will set me free from the body of this death?" So, I stand with you, B. Brown. "Our salvation" (or deliverance - as the word means) from this sinful principle within us "lies in hope". "...we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

Meanwhile, we are not in despair, for we are now children of God, and nothing can separate us from him, as Rom.8 goes on to say. And, the sin within us can no longer condemn us, because, as Romans 6:7 says, "we have been justified from sin." And, we are confident in this, that "he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?" And, we are confident with Paul that "he who began the good work in us will complete it."

Your honesty is refreshing, brother!

Blessings!

__________________
Charles Plauger
Member/Grace Reformed Church
Oakland, MD