I am 17 years old, and have been a Christian for a little over a year. Before I was saved however, I lived a horribly sinful and destructive life. I've been in church all my life, and even went forward to "receive Christ" when I was about 7. I had no idea what I was doing though, and I probably did it simply to please my parents. The first thing I was told after I was led in a child's version of the sinner's prayer, was that I could never lose my salvation, and no matter what I did God would still love me and welcome me with open arms into His kingdom. I was still clueless though. In my mind Jesus was nothing more than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
Years passed, and in 6th grade I made up my mind that Jesus was just that ... a fairy tale. I renounced what little I knew about Christianity, and lived my life the way I wanted to live. During this time I turned to pornography, which became a powerful addiction. And by 10th grade I had experimented with alchohol, and was flooding my mind with the all sorts of evil music. Marylin Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, you name it. I began to read the Bible for the sole purpose of using it against Christians. It was a form of pagan apologetics. I showed Christians how their loving Abba Father slaughtered innocent babies in the Old Testament, and then showed them that He can never change. I began to plunge deeper into sin and was contemplating suicide, even though I managed to keep a smile on my face every Sunday at church. I told myself that it just wasn't worth it.
I planned on killing myself the very next week, but the week that I had set aside as my last, God set aside as my first. I was in my bedroom with the TV off, and no one to distract me. I sat and I thought, I thought about everything there is to think about ... but my mind was constantly drawn back to God. I began to feel such conviction that I started to cry, the first real tears in years. I began to come to grips that God is real, and that He never has changed. He had every right to kill me, to take my own blessed suicide away from me. My hate for Him transformed into fear. My dad walked by the door to the bedroom, and I told him that I had to get saved, right then and there. He came in and knelt with me and prayed with me to receive Christ. As soon as I opened my eyes I felt the weight of sin lift off of my shoulders, and I thought I was going to float though the ceiling! Christ became real to me. That night I stayed up to 2:00 am reading the gospel of Luke.
I never questioned my eternal security, though, I believed whole-heartedly that sin could not separate me from God, no matter how severe. That week I was forced to changed lunch tables, the conversations I used to enjoy with my old friends were so filthy I couldn't stand it anymore. I went and sat at a table with someone I knew was a Christian. One day during the course of the month at lunch, he was reading a copy of "The Believer's Conditional Security." I asked him about it, and told me it refuted every argument OSAS proponets have ever made to support their doctrine. Needless to say I was shocked ... the only other truly committed Christian in the entire school believed in CONDITIONAL eternal security! I felt like he had trampled on the very foundation of the gospel itself!
Nevertheless, everything he said somehow made sense to me. This made me even more angry ... I decided I'd just never mention it again. Nearly a year later though, I found this website. Praise God! After a lot of deliberation, I finally decided to reject the gospel of OSAS, and God has opened my eyes to other false doctrines ever since.
After so much study it all makes sense. God is not the author of confusion! My understanding of this Biblical truth has increased my faith and my affection for Christ. My dad is even slowly beginning to question this false doctrine as I have been led by the Spirit to share it with him.
Thank you so much! May God bless you and your ministry.
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