[DungeonMaster]

How do they get salvation in the first place? How do they maintain it, if at all? How does one stop being a Christian? Does one decide, that today I am saved and I will go to Heaven, but later today, I will determine they I no longer wish to be saved, and I would rather suffer untold agony, in liquid flame for all eternity? If it is not an instant decision to choose to go to eternal Hell, is it a progression, and if do, which sin do I commit that determines the exact second that I lose my salvation? Let's say, a few months later, I decide I don't want to go to an eternal Hell with all it's many horrors, and I wish to be saved again, and go to Heaven? Can I regain my salvation again, or am I out of luck? Can I regain and lose my salvation an unlimited number of times? Is there an unlimited number of times I can do this, or only a certain number of times, before I am lost and can never get it back again? Serious problems, no?

Wow Mark17, your brain works just like mine does. Are you into math and/or physics by any chance?

I got saved while in the Army on TDY in Honduras. I was a serious atheist when I joined and right up until I asked a Christian Captain "What do I have to do go to heaven?". He said "Believe in Jesus". I asked "And what else". He said "If you believe you will be saved". I asked "What would I even call myself if I did?". I was that ignorant about all things Christian. He said "If you believe just call yourself a Christian".

I turned around, walked away and in about 20 steps, like a bolt of lightning, the words "IT'S TRUE!" entered my mind.

I was given eternal life via the Holy Spirit at that instant.

For the next 2ish years my #1 worry was "Can I die again?".

Then I met a Christian from a group that was an offshoot of John Darby. "The Tunbridge Wells Plymoth Brethen". The man knew the bible better than any other I've met since and he explained to me about election and security. It's a very important doctrine to me. I keenly remembered my lost state that I had been in for my first 22 years and I feared going back to that state of being dead.

Thank God for his gift of grace through faith. I have nothing to boast, it is all Him.

[newgeezer]

Amen, brother!

[Mark17]

Interesting story. I was raised as a catholic but I was saved in the USAF, led to the Lord by the Navigators, at Mountain Home AFB, ID, and they grounded us well in the Bible. I was baptized in the swimming pool at Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam, even though I guess I was infant sprinkled, but I am not sure, because I was too young to remember. 😁 I am not into physics, and the deepest I ever got into math, was to remember we stacked airplanes a thousand feet apart vertically to keep them separated. ✈️ We got em up and we got em down. We got pretty good at it too. Later, I counted criminals several times a day. ➕➗➖✖️

[CynicalBear]

>>Thank God for his gift of grace through faith. I have nothing to boast, it is all Him.<<

That's the blessed assurance! I thank God every day that's it's not my feeble attempts but the gift of God by His grace. I love hearing stories like yours!