Ah, the voice of the "Church of Nice" where telling the Truth as Scripture lays it out is proof of an attitude problem.
Yessiree, The Church of Nice where those who are dumber than a bag of hammers gather and press on toward their own damnation with a smile on their face.
Well, you do need to catch the overarching spirit before you can really make sense of the bible, because it has some difficult passages in it.
It turns out that God indeed IS very gracious. Most of the hardships of life are things that we courted ourselves in our foolish isolation from God’s own goodness.
But anyhow that overarching spirit is NOT “let’s be our own thing.” And the more we try to meet it, the more we see that we are flawed. And here’s where affirming a promise of permanent salvation (no one shall snatch them out of My hand) is a great help. Satan can lay feelings on you from time to time that are false. You can feel unsaved and yet know you aren’t unsaved.