I have been at this for a long while. i have listened to Calvinist teachers and preachers and Wesleyan teachers and preachers as well. The same questions come to me through the years.
1. Can I really lose my salvation?
2. If we are all followers of Christ, then why are we still split on this very important issue, Salvation?
3. Is the Bible teaching of Salvation so broad that we need to theological interpretations?
Believe me when I say that this has been the for most in my mind for most of my Christian life. These questions really started in the 1990's when I was in between churches, one being a Baptist church and the other a Church of Christ.
The two are on opposed sides, if I remember correctly.
i was taught that when we are saved Christ sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts to live within us, to help us or as Jesus Christ said council us in our walk in God.
Then as the teachers/preachers kept talking about sin and how a christian who sins is not really saved, that got me to thinking, getting more confused.
Then I really got messed up when attending a full gospel, non-denominational church that focused on say it til you make it theory which is also called the Word-life, charismatic false gospel.
At this time my theology was so split and confusing that I shut down all together and lived a calloused life against all churches and stopped attending.
That was a long break, mixed with going to church every so often at another Baptist church, this was the time of the Purpose driven movement. I was intrigued by Warren and his book, which i read but never really grasped and truly agreed in and rarely even think about it today. I started listening to John MacArthur, way of the master TV shows and Todd freakishly tall Friel, all the while at church i was still stuck between thinking yes, I can lose my salvation and no I cannot lose salvation that Christ gave me.
The questions seemed to be fading as I totally got on bored a train that really took me to places I didn't think I would go, Watching out for false prophets.
This started when our church started playing Nooma videos by Rob Bell. He is so far off the gospel that it was plain to see, except to the leaders of the church so naturally since they agreed with Rick Warren, "because he's a baptist" as one preacher told me in the middle of the cash registers in a store where I bumped into him at, and also agreed with Bell, because it feels right.
Although i was confused about salvation, and whether i could lose it or not, i knew that these jokers and the same type as Joel Osteen and Jerry Savelle and Jesse Duplantis and The Oral Roberts Family were wrong and leading many people astray, and into thinking they are gods themselves and we are in control of our own lives.
But all the while I was still confused to whether we as God's children would lose the salvation that Jesus Christ died for.
This year I am taking inventory on my life, past, present and future by reading the bible studying the Doctrine of Salvation, Soteriology. And asking around at my church here in Alliance, Ohio, WellSpring Bible Church.
And so far it is looking bright, and at the same time perplexing. I will write more of my findings as I go along this journey.
To Be Continued...
