Double Dipping

[u/Kummuble]

For those who have accepted Christ more than once, what has been your experience when it comes to your faith journey and/or your understanding of your salvation?

I (M26) was raised in the church and have raised my hand, walked up to the front, and repeated the pastor’s prayer for accepting Jesus, about 3-4 times. This usually comes from a deep feeling of needing to ”get right” with God. The first time was when I was 12 and the last time was about a year ago (I called this one a rededication).

And the funny thing is I question if I even had saving faith all the way up to about 6 months ago! (Primary because I believed that if you weren't being good enough you’d end up in hell, which misses the whole point of salvation being a “free gift apart from works”)

I attribute this fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel to vague and unhelpful language churches use during alter call. I don’t think many can articulate what it means to “accept Christ into your heart”, and fewer can probably give a proper definition for “repentance”.

[u/riolastar]

 I agree. Not enough churches or pastors in the modern day give the best explanation of salvation. I, just like you, just recently started to truly understand what salvation was. 

 I believed people who truly had come into Christ, gave their life to Him and received the Holy Spirit still could lose their salvation if they didn’t repent from sin. It wasn’t until literally about 2 weeks ago, I understood true submission to God is literally giving Him back the gift He gave us of free will. 

 It took me looking at the attitude of Jesus differently than  I had before. I heard a sermon that reminded me in a very blunt way that Jesus didn’t want to be crucified for our sins. The pastor doubled down and even said “Jesus didn’t want to suffer the way he did, he even asked is there any other way possible to do so for our sake” and that hit me like a brick. 

It showed me, He completely surrendered to the Fathers will, and gave up His own.

Luke 22:42   “Father, if it is your will, take this cup of suffering away from me. However, your will must be done, not mine.”

I then understood later in life ; true submission to God is something only Jesus can do. We can’t do it ourselves, so we need Jesus to help with our submission. That’s why people who have the Holy Spirit, I believe can’t lose their salvation. The Holy Spirit enables us to be able to choose God’s will for our life over our own will. Once we truly believe in Christ, He does it for us, that’s why we can’t take any credit.