Hello Billy, many have said it better than me. But I'll add my 2 cents in as well.
This verse as I understand it is, that we can't keep asking Christ to save us as if we're asking him again the first time. It's like putting him back on the cross. What you would need to do is with an honest heart of repentance (change of mind and heart) seek his forgiveness and move on from your past. Will you sin again? Yes, we all do and if we say we are without sin, we are liars. But the difference is you are continually seeking God in your life and you are striving to continually put the spirit over the flesh. You are young and it is a battle. I'm in my 50's and in my 20's I was all over the place. Sometimes the sanctification process takes time. But God is a heart knower. He knows if we're truly trying to make a change. I would continually stay in his Word. And continually seek him in prayer. That's what keeps me going.
If you have problem sin instead of asking for forgiveness over and over and repeating the same sins over and over -ask for his guidence and help to overcome those and that usually comes from as I said, staying in his Word every day.
The fact that you're here means our Heavenly Father is speaking to you. He wants you to come to full repentance. And he is long suffering. Meaning he has patience. But that's not a license to sin but it shows that no matter what you've done, he will still be there upon true repentance.
II Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
He doesn't want anyone to perish he wants us to repent and come back to the fold.
Hi, thanks a lot for this comment as well as the verse. Ever since I “got serious” (got saved for real?) last year, I have been changing various behaviors and getting better about a lot of sins. I guess one of my problems now is, since I lived such a sinful lifestyle for those 7 or so years, I keep bringing up those same sins over and over again in my prayers; idk if it’s that I worry some sins won’t be forgiven unless I remember every one, or if I am otherwise scared that I’m not actually saved and that I’m “not doing it right.”
I think part of it is that I *claimed* to be a Christian all those years, and now it’s dawning on me that I really didn’t “walk the walk.” I had prayed what I thought was a sincere “salvation” prayer as a kid, read my Bible every once in a while, even got baptized (and at least believed I was serious when I professed my belief at baptism; it’s not like I was lying to the pastor’s face). But I got into committing sins and didn’t really take them seriously, didn’t try too hard to stop them or ask God for help stopping them. My mindset was always “Well I’m saved, so that’s all that matters.” I think it hadn’t really dawned on me how important repentance is, and I never realized that if I was a true believer then my life should reflect it and there should be a change. And I certainly didn’t think about how much my sin must disappoint God.
Basically, I think I believed that salvation is a “license to sin” which is obviously a really dangerous mindset to have and disrespectful to God. I’m now ashamed for having had that mindset; I feel bad for taking what Christ did for me, for granted. :/ It especially hit me hard when I read the whole book of John for the first time late last year; I broke down sobbing over the part when Jesus speaks to his disciples/prays before his crucifixion (Chapters 16-17 I believe). It moved me so much to think that He had done this for me. And yet I had lived my life like it was no big deal.
So, since I sinned all those years and didn’t feel compelled to repent after every instance at the time, I now feel like I must play catch-up and try and actively remember as many sins as I can, to apologize for. And I find myself obsessing over it all, wondering - if my first “salvation” for all those years wasn’t real - if I’m really even saved now or not.
And then there’s the fact that this all came about as a result of me getting scared of the end times; last July or so I became convinced that we are headed straight for the end, and it terrified me. I realized I had grown so distant from God (turns out I probably wasn’t even saved!?), and knew I would need to draw close to Him if I hoped to endure what is to come. At the same time, I was (and still am) growing increasingly disgusted with the blatant evil in the world, and I was realizing it was time to “pick sides” and stand with the Righteous one (who wins in the end!). And by “endure,” I don’t even mean I hope/expect God to keep me safe & alive throughout potential tribulations. That was how I thought of it at first, but now I mean I want to have the strength to always acknowledge Him as Lord, in the face of persecution and even death. I *want* to have such a strong faith that I would be willing to forsake everything, even my life, in the name of standing on the side of Truth. In fact I’d consider it an honor; I got *very* moved reading in my Bible about how Paul wanted to share in Christ’s suffering.
Now, I’m not sure if I was right or wrong about the idea of the end times happening soon; heck, it’s possible I was wrong and that things are still decades or more away (but the way things are going, I don’t think so). But at this point, after having “gotten serious” last year, all I know is that I want to spend the rest of my days here on Earth following God and living according to His Word regardless of what/when anything happens. So even though fear may have been a catalyst for me to start taking things seriously, I feel like I want to follow Him even regardless of fear. And yet I still worry “What if I’m only doing all this because I’m scared of hell?” :/ Ugh.
But then I remind myself of verses like Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD
is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy
is understanding.” So maybe fear *isn’t* the worst-ever initial motivator to start taking things seriously?
Anyways, I have been reading the Bible every day since back in July or August, and I have been praying as well. I used to always just listen to music while going for neighborhood walks, but as of the last couple days I’ve begun listening to an audio Bible instead. If you had told me a few years ago that I would be making changes like this in my life or taking God so seriously, I likely wouldn’t have believed it. So, I hope it’s “real”; it is definitely much more active in my life than anything I ever had in all my prior years of thinking I was a Christian. I never used to be like this.
I voiced my concerns about my salvation to my mom a few days ago and she told me she has been praying for years for me to draw closer to God, and she told me that the fact that I’m even thinking about all this stuff and so concerned with my salvation means that God is drawing me to Him and that it’s not hopeless. And that if it was hopeless for me, I likely wouldn’t even care about this at all/would be totally content to just keep doing what I was doing. I hope she’s right. I *think* I’m sincere in my desires to change, but I do doubt myself at times, and the OCD certainly doesn’t help.
Anyways, sorry for unloading on you with the super-long post; thank you again for your message. I will add that 2 Peter verse to my list of verses I’ve been compiling!
