Are desires part of conversion or not ?
Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
John 14:30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
To be tempted is not sin, but to enter into temptation is sin. Is conversion and experience that leaves you remaining to desire or lust after the sins that were once enjoyed ?
I believe that conversion is not such an experience. I grew up in intense sexual transgression (no details given) so it is not a theoretical topic for me.
Conversion is progressive and does not give "holy flesh". As much as you are daily willing to enter into and can endure and seek after with your whole heart - that conversion does within you.
The natural tendencies and the spiritual / mental experience are two warring powers. What your mind enjoys depends on which power is ruling within. I did not say tempted, I said enjoys. Satan will tempt as often as allowed to.
That does not mean a person enjoys the sudden intrusion of thoughts, feelings, wharever. If spiritually trained in the Scriptures they view this sudden intrusion as an unwelcome intruder and call on God, and claim Scripture, divert their mind and circumstances if possible .
If a person is half hearted about seeking God and staying connected with God, they will when disconnected finally realize they enjoy thinking about sin. It is God operating through the connection of whole hearted seeking Him, that implants continual emnity against sin and especially formerly favorite sins. Without the spiritual connectedness the sins return to being present favorite sins and are no longer former favorite sins.
Conversion is not feeling monentarally at emnity against my favorite sins because I am not tempted. Conversion shows it's self when I am so changed as to hate those once cherished things even though severely tempted. Tempted not because I desire them, but tempted because they are being used as weapons against me by Satan.
With conversion I enter the experience of hateing what God hates and loving what He loves within the limits of my sphere of existence and experience. In the process of the conversion of my mind, I am expected to cooperate to the fullest extent I can each day. The whole hartedness or halfheartedness of my seeking God determines the results in God's timetable.
The conversion of my flesh into smoke or eternal life will be rapid and beyond my choice then at that moment. My choices now in this life of opportunity deside for smoke or eternal life. i will not reveive the Latter Rain with an impure mind nor be translated seeking or desiring my favorite sins.
I am assuming you have Bible & SOP search engines to use.
Case in point - Why was Esau rejected, why was his repentance no good in God's sight ? What was going on inside Esau that God rejected ?
Hebrews 12:
1 ¶ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 ¶ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
S.K. Pipim in his book "Must We Be Silent" talks about the Biblical ramifications of desiring sins and what the Bible says about it. I will relocate the book and post the Biblical research soon I hope.
I not too long ago looked up "Time of Trouble" and found that during that time those who utterly hate sin get all their sympathies removed from this world and it's ways by the agonizing temptations and experiences they go through.
So it makes me consider that when you still desire a sin you are drawing closer to the tempter when you move toward it mentally and finally act on it. When you are revolted, disgusted, totally turned off by a sin and get tempted by it's intrusion in your life by whatever means, you pull further away from the tempter and sympathies toward the old life.
Why don't I seek out or daydream about ham & porkchops any more after all I am still fat enough to look the part ?
Because I hate the very concept of touching, eating, or being around such. In other words I have given that to Jesus and do not cherish it at all. When I first became informed from the Bible I couldn't say that. but faith was more important than tummy. Once I became SDA that process was well under way.
Perhaps the value we a humans place upon various gratifications through sin, is why some sins more easily beset us.
Perhaps as we place an absolute value upon Jesus eclipsing everything else, we will get corresponding spiritual results.
Conversion does not promised an unbroken unmaimed body in this life, but it creates an unpolluted mind after sufficent time of wholehearted seeking.
The state of the spiritual reality within depending upon God to work through the connection to Him. He knows our individual capacities and when we are whole hearted and half hearted with him.