My testimony is that I was a defeated and scared believer before I began to really read the Scriptures, and to understand that God saves us eternally, because he is sovereign.
Do you know what sovereign means, Jason?
"The
Sovereignty of God is the biblical teaching that all things are under God's rule and control, and that nothing happens without His direction or permission.
God works not just some things but all things according to the counsel of His own will (see Eph. 1:11). His purposes are all-inclusive and never thwarted (see Isa. 46:11); nothing takes Him by surprise. The sovereignty of God is not merely that God has the power and right to govern all things, but that He does so, always and without exception. In other words, God is not merely sovereign
de jure (in principle), but sovereign
de facto (in practice)."
http://www.theopedia.com/Sovereignty_of_God
"The sovereignty of God means that He has total control of all things past, present and future. Nothing happens that is out of His knowledge and control. All things are either caused by Him or allowed by Him for His own purposes and through His perfect will and timing (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6). He is the only absolute and omnipotent ruler of the universe and is sovereign in creation, providence and redemption."
"If there is any element of the universe that is outside of his authority, then he no longer is God over all. In other words, sovereignty belongs to deity. Sovereignty is a natural attribute of the Creator. God owns what he makes, and he rules what he owns." – R.C. Sproul -
See more at:
Sovereignty of God Definition
God is in control, not us. That is true for redemption as it is for creation, and for all things in this universe.
As a defeated Arminian Christian, because I attended churches that taught only that, I gradually moved away from God, because I knew I had continued to sin after I was saved. True, I repented, confessed those sins, but I knew that it was never enough!
And I was right! We can never obey Jesus, follow him closely enough in our own strength to deserve salvation. That is why Jesus is the one who justifies, and it gives us peace with God.
"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 8:1
That is the moment God legally justified or declared us to be right before him. The Greek is most instructive in this verse.
"Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ," Romans 5:1
Δικαιωθέντες, (dikaiothentes) is an aorist passive participle. Aorist points to a completed action. Passive means theologically that God has done the action upon the subject. Therefore, it is GOD who justifies, not us, not our works, our obedience or our ability to follow God.
The outcome of God justifying or declaring us righteous, is that we have peace with God. I know the day that I realized it was God that saved me, not myself, I had peace that had eluded me for 25 years, under the erroneous and heinous doctrine of losing your salvation by your actions.
My husband continued to believe himself unworthy of being saved, and also drifted far from God. Fortunately, we found a Biblical pastor to sit under, and he preached over and over that we are eternally saved and cannot lose our salvation, based on passage after passage. My husband became a different person when he realized he could not earn his way to heaven by his works. He went back to reading his Bible, to witnessing, to proclaiming that GOD SAVES. It was the true meaning of freedom in Jesus Christ.
So sorry you had a bad experience and thought you were saved when you weren't, backslide from your supposed salvation, and now come on here constantly teaching bad doctrine that we can lose our salvation, based on poor exegesis of the Biblical text. But the fact is, every time you examine these supposed proof texts for losing your salvation, the Greek does not support it.
Neither does the English for that matter, but because English is a less complex language than Greek, it is easier to twist than the Greek, especially since you are working from a translation with translators biases, rather than the original language.
The "plain" meaning of the Biblical text has to start with God, not humans. If you start with God being in control, justifying, sanctifying and glorifying us, then the Bible will reveal the glorious news (gospel) that Christ loved us so much, he died on the cross for our sins, and rose again to show the power of God, and is returning for his people.