My view is that when God called Abraham he knew he was going to work through flawed human beings to bring about redemption... and that the fault lines run forward then all the way to the cross,
the most wicked thing humans ever did and the most loving thing God ever did.
I pretty much agreed with
most of what you have said and i think that the sinners prayer has been misused as a get out of Jail free card.A couple of
things that people miss is that God is in charge.As soon as you offer yourself to God and accept Jesus Chris the holy spirit has liberty to work on you.Because he loves us he will discipline us so that we do repent of our sins.The downside of living a walk like that you are a hypocrite until you admit your sinfulness the holy spirit can not help us because of our pride.The second part was you talking about disciplining the flesh personally you cant discipline that which is corrupt our hearts are deceitfully
wicked we need new hearts no amount of effort on our part will transform our hearts that is the work of the holy spirit he changes our hearts so that we no longer desire to sin we would rather serve the Lord with all our hearts instead.brentnz