In other words, like every other believer, I would find myself at times unwilling to deal honestly and biblically with myself - justifying my spiritual stagnation with an inarticulate and delusional notion that it wasn't really my fault somehow.  

Having read in the scriptures that repentance was something the Lord grants, I concluded that unless and until the Lord granted me the grace to repent that I needed, I would be stuck in the rut, and so I would pray in this way. 

Make no mistake, the Holy Spirit within me was certainly willing that I repent, but my flesh being weak continued to rule over me through my own selfish desires - and my flesh did not want me to repent.   So I would ask for this same grace that enabled my first repentance, hoping to find in this "new" grace the strength to suddenly desire obedience over disobedience.

But it was hit and miss and mostly miss at that. Unanswered prayer such as this kind tell us that something is not right in what we are praying for. God is generous and lovingly kind, and desires our sanctification far more than we do. If God isn't answering a prayer that I think would result in my being closer to the person He calls me to be, there is probably something wrong with either my prayer or my heart. 

But since the desire to repent does not come from my flesh (which cannot produce a good fruit such as that) I know this desire is from my Lord who is in me through the Holy Spirit. His heart is right. 

So the problem isn't a matter of a wrong hearted prayer. I must be asking the Lord to do something for me that He is either not going to do, or that He has already done, and I am ignorant of. 

Let's figure out which it is. 

Given how our Lord commands believers to repent six times in the book of revelation, and the command to believers to repent is functionally identical to the command to walk in the Spirit, I became persuaded that while God does in fact grant that first repentance (that ended in my justification), it wasn't just a one-time ability to repent - it was the Holy Spirit quickening my "dead-in-trespasses" soul, so that I was able to believe and repent.  

In the moment I believed, this same Holy Spirit began to indwell my life - binding my life up in the life of Christ, who through the Spirit was now within me.  Since that moment I have, by way of the Holy Spirit within me, the ability to act upon the will of God which the Spirit within me makes known.  That is, I have the persistent grace of being led by the Holy Spirit - and in this way, I have all I need already to repent. 

Problem solved. 

I should pause here however to clarify that last part - lest some reader interprets what I wrote through the wrong lens. 

So I certainly don't mean to imply any mystical hocus pocus.  If that sort of  stuff is your bag, I encourage you to get honest with yourself. 

Getting back to my main line, I discovered that, when it comes to repentance, God had already granted me the ability to repent when I received the repentance that led to life.  What (or rather Who) I received in the first work of the Spirit, I received for the rest of this present life - the Spirit Himself. 

He has continued to give me the desire to repent of my disobedience - an ongoing grace which is more than sufficient for my temporary deliverance from temptations.

I am not suggesting that the Lord does not from time to time grant profound (seemingly effortless ) deliverance (He can and sometimes does!) but this is the exception and not the rule.

I have come to understand that repentance for the Christian means turning away from sin by faith through obedience to the will of God as revealed by and through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  

This is not a prayer request; this is commanded of us: Repent!  

Even if the old man, is incapable of unaided repentance, the Christian is able to obey the will of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is simply a matter of faith and genuine worship.

The bottom line for me when I saw this was to conclude that I shouldn't continue in my fruitless prayers for God to make me repent (against the will of my flesh), since the fact that I am asking that shows that I am in the flesh and not in the Spirit. This is being double minded. What I need to do is stop obeying the flesh and it's desires. I need to repent.

Obviously I, that is my 'old man' or my 'flesh' (not the meaty part of my body or even my physical form, but rather the 'me' that desires to slake ever passing desire) doesn't have the ability to repent, but Christ within me, through the Holy Spirit, has proven Himself victorious over both sin and the grave - so my job is to not walk (ie conduct myself) according to the desires of the fles, but rather according to the desires of the Spirit- in faith. 

That last part crowns all. Listen: when you want to do a thing you know is sin, or not do a thing you know you're called to do, and in that moment you reason that Christ is your Lord and so you struggle with finding some way to justify the sin you want to pursue - but instead decide to obey Christ over and against obeying you own desires- this hinges on whether or not you believe Christ has the right to expect and receive your obedience. If you believe Christ is your Lord, you submit to Him - and if you deny it, you don't.  Some people don't realize this struggle is a struggle of faith.  Listen: there is no magic key to Christian obedience - it just comes down to faith. 

You cannot truly repent except that you believe Jesus has the right to command your obedience. Walking by faith, walking by or 'in' the Spirit, and 'repenting' are all ways of describing the same thing - the 'How' part of being a right and proper Christian.  Your ongoing sanctification depends upon growth in truths such as this.