My Earlier Struggle with the Doctrine of Eternal Security

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I don't deny that the doctrine of eternal security is true yet it can be misrepresented by false converts as a license to sin. I remembered how often I struggled with the idea of eternal security. No, I didn't believe that you can lose your salvation every time you sin. Instead, I believed that you can lose your salvation by choosing to reject Jesus after you got saved. I used to think it was possible yet part of me believed that if you're a follower of Jesus then you are going to remain.

Can you truly get out of the hand of God after you are saved? Part of me started to struggle with these ideas. Some people I knew who came from Protestant or Baptist families ended up becoming Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Ang Dating Daan members, and even Muslims? It had me thinking, "What a foolish decision to get saved and then throw it away later! How could they reject Jesus after He saved them from Hell?" Then I felt what could be the Holy Spirit's conviction in me telling me that such people may have been from a family of Christians but they weren't Christians. This was that always accompanied me every time I thought that it's possible to renounce one's salvation.

I then retook reading one pamphlet that I received called "Safe and Secure: The Permanence of Salvation". I was thinking at first that the doctrine itself is poison. Then I started rereading it and started redoing a study of said doctrine. As said, just because I read the Bible once doesn't mean I didn't miss a thing. Instead, I ended up thinking about it that Judas Iscariot wasn't saved at all. I also thought that if you think you're too good after you supposedly "got saved" and decided to trust your works later - you were never saved. That's the truth found in 1 John 2:19 - a truth that malicious preachers like Dan Corner still outright reject even if it's outright clear about eternal security.

Then I started thinking all over again what eternal security means. You can backslide but God restores you. A Christian is never happy when they have backslid. No, backsliding doesn't mean that a person no longer believes in Jesus. Some people teach the heresy that you can voluntarily abandon Jesus and later trust your works. No, the Bible is clear that if you've left the flock then you were just sit-in but never a Christian. Going to a Christian church doesn't make you a Christian just like going to a garage doesn't make you a car. A person can go to a non-Christian university yet if the person is a Christian - he or she can't be de-converted from true conversion.

The standing truth to why I got convicted of the idea that you can lose your salvation by no longer trusting in Christ is in Philippians 1:8-9. Jesus began that good work and that means if He started it then He will finish it. Any true believer won't have the mindset of I can sin all I please because I'm saved. No, they have that mindset of how I wish I can sin no more so I can please my Savior and Lord. That's what eternal security is all about. As said, it's once saved always saved but there will be a distinction. Only false converts will think they have a license to sin but no true convert will think such heresy is real. It's because salvation results in sanctification and someday result in glorification. 

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