I do understand that we cannot anticipate what living a Christian life is, and promise to do so - before coming to Christ. But I don't see how repentance, even at the most technical level of "change of mind", cannot include a resolution to leave or stop already known sin. And if there is no consciousness of any known sin I don't see how you could come to Christ for salvation. In other words, if you know you are a lost sinner - that knowledge requires that you understand you have done something worthy of making you a lost sinner and by definition you are unsatisfied with that situation. Is it possible that you might just decide to carry on in your sin? Well the answer to that is in Romans 6:1.
A Calvinist, many of whom believe that regeneration occurs before faith, would agree, but would then say that since salvation is all of God then such partial, no Lordship conversions are a logical impossibility, unless God is failing to save his elect. Baptists who don't go that far but do say the Holy Spirit is essential in coming to Christ I think can make the same claim. Those who think coming to Christ is a matter of free human choosing only must face the fact that the "decisions" will reflect that. So then they are left with "hopefully they will repent later" or "there is a such thing as a carnal Christian, who has Jesus in their heart but themselves still on the throne of their lives" and so on.
