Your Can't is Your Won't.

        Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

     Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

     and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

     For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

                                                            Romans 6:11-14 NASB

     There are many individuals who look at the sinful habits they are enslaved to, and long to be free. They convince themselves that they hate their sin, that they want to be free from it, that they are willing to be saved, but their sin has them bound. They may pray and ask for God's help, they tell God they want to be free, they want to quit, they want to repent, but they can't. Many of these individuals find comfort in the fact that they are so bound. They feel that the responsibility for their sin is not theirs; God sees their heart, knows of their willingness to repent, knows of their desire to be saved, and now it is up to God to act on their behalf. They somehow believe that since God allows them to remain bound up in sin, they are safe, the responsibility is now on God. 

     In dealing with the "inability" of sinners to repent, Charles Finney told them, "Your can't is your won't." In other words they were making excuses. They perhaps felt bad about sin, maybe they wanted some assurance of heaven, and were hoping that God would somehow, in a sovereign way, make them quit sinning. The truth is, many people do not actually want to give up sin, They say they want to repent, but they can't, it is too hard. It is an excuse; they really love their sin too much to actually part from it. 

     We just read from Romans chapter six where Paul speaks of making a complete break from sin. He tells us to consider that we are dead to sin. It is impossible for dead men to have plans and purposes, to make choices, and to act upon those choices. Likewise, if we are dead to sin, we are done with it; we have made a complete break with it. 

     It is true that sin has men bound, but it is just as true that God commands us to repent. If God has called us to repentance, He expects us to repent. He does not command it just to watch us struggle with the "inability" to repent. If you truly desire freedom from the sin that has you bound you can find that freedom in Christ Jesus. If the Son sets you free you are free indeed (John 8:34-36). He asks us to repent, that is give up our sin and self, and surrender our lives to Him by faith. It is not a matter of waiting God's time, for now is the day of salvation, and if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart further, by clinging to your sin. If you mean business, if you are serious, God will then meet you where you are, and set you free.