Yea but back then I don't remember Calvin's name being brought up anywhere as much as it is now. Back then it was more about "hyper grace" vs legalism, and back then I was on the opposite side of the argument that I am now. At that point I did believe we could lose our salvation. I didn't believe we could exactly "lose it", as much as I believed we had to have the same freedom to walk away from it as we had to come to it.
Basically I believed like many here teach, that I came to Jesus via my free will and choice, so I just couldn't reconcile that I come to Jesus a free man and am transformed by His mighty power and am made a slave that no longer has the free will choice to walk away from it all if I felt like it and choose to do so.
I just couldn't make sense of this dilemma in my head and went to all these passages that seem to suggest we can lose salvation and read them just like all the others here that teach this. Then God open my eyes to the truth, I didn't come to Him and "choose" Him with my free will, He picked my dead, lifeless, hopeless, helpless, broken self up, and gave me life like I've never known. He did that, I didn't choose it. As a matter of fact, I have to take that back, I did choose Him. I used my free will to respond to the alter call, to repeat the prayer, and was told that I was now saved. I wasn't. So, when the real test in life hit and I was not saved and only thought I was, I found the whole God/Jesus/Christianity thing fell VERY short and just turned from it thinking it was all useless and it led me to where I started this post at, a dead, lifeless, hopeless, helpless, broken man stuck here in life because I can't leave my two sons with nothing but "my dad killed himself".
When I hit my knees in truth it was because I saw clearly the result of "my way" and there was no escape from it. That day, the day God granted me repentance, that day, I didn't even know what was happening, but I saw my way for what it was in truth, and I quit it, I turned from it. I'm not going to go through all the detail I do on here all too often, but I woke up the next day a new man, a completely new creature, born-again of the Spirit and amazed with new eyes and guide.
All that to make the point that it wasn't me who decided to come to Jesus and "get saved". When I did do that, it just made me a false convert, however when I was really saved, saved in truth and in Spirit, I was saved by God not my choice. There is just no denying that for me, I know I didn't have ANY hand in saving myself at all. Then I read His word and read that we are not free, not at all ever. Not that we don't have choice or agency, we do and that is VERY important of course, but no matter what our choices are always enslaved to our natures, which there are two of. The flesh and the Spirit. That born of the flesh puts his mind to things of the flesh, worries about fleshly things and cannot please God, but he who is born of the Spirit sets his mind to the things of the Spirit and only he who has been born of the Spirit is even capable of pleasing God. The man of the flesh CANNOT be pleasing to God, it's just not possible. And before we even think about tooting our own horn, we can only be pleasing to God because Jesus covers us in His perfect righteousness, however this does lead our hearts to desire to live in a pleasing way to God.
I guess there was just no way for me to get my point across in a short, sweet post, but thinking of DC and these old debates reminded me that we are all growing and even truly born-again believers can change our position on some of these issues. We really shouldn't let these things divide us the way they do to the point we are just two gangs going at each other in a nonstop loop/holding pattern never growing closer to each other or to God and doing nothing at all to glorify Him at all.
