Rocky soil, not producing fruit...

I feel like I'm the rocky soil or something. I grew up in the church and always had a respect for God. I think I remember saying a prayer with someone at a VBS I went to and I think it might have been to accept Jesus. However, when I began to hit puberty I quickly developed an obsession to inappropriate content and stuff (honestly, I remember having some sort of interest with naked/half-naked women since I was extremely young, I honestly don't know why. Sorry if I'm saying too much). When I first started, I felt really guilty about it and always felt the need to tell my mom about it when I did it. Over time, though, it got worse and worse, and I stopped caring. Besides that, though, I avoided most other sins. Well, I didn't really think about God too much, at least not for the most part; I spent most of my time playing video games and watching YouTube, a habit I've kept to this day. (I quit playing completely for several months, and only began playing again recently. I think I might be playing too much again.) I developed OCD and began worrying about everything. I remember during this time I was always afraid I was going to hell for doing different things. Until recently, my understanding of the Bible and Christianity was pretty limited. Anyway, after I stopped having OCD, I began to really develop and obsession for everything related to sex and stuff. This happened around 6-7th grade. I convinced myself that as long as I believed in God and Jesus and the stuff in the Bible, I was good and could be forgiven. For the longest time, I felt practically no guilt or shame or anything at all. In fact, I was practically ready to have sex when and if the situation arose. I planned on kind of sleeping around when I got older and not really committing. Obviously not Christian behavior. However, it was only in the sex area that I had this mindset. I still maintained Christian conduct in most other areas for the most part. As I got older, I began to stray a bit. I began to listen to rap, I cussed a few times, and I began to follow the crowd basically. I want to say that I think the people at my school probably had the most influence on my bad behaviors, since they were also "Christians" (professing? Not my place to judge) and did alot of worldly, non Christian things. This made me think I could do them too and br fine. I don't think I ever repented in the proper sense, I had the idea that if I didn't ask for forgiveness for my sins, I would go to hell. So whenever I had some sense of impending doom or felt something was going to happen and I might die, I would quickly pray for God to forgive my sins. Stupid stuff like that. There were occasions when I would be in church and would raise my hand to rededicate my life to Christ or whatever, sometimes every Sunday for weeks in a row, but would end up not really changing at all. There were other times when I would feel convicted by a sermon and would try to change my habits somewhat to read my Bible more, stop watching inappropriate content, etc. But none of that lasted very long. Anyway, around December last year/January this year, I began to read stuff about how false conversions and fake Christians and how they weren't really saved, and how true Christians wouldn't keep sinning without repenting, basically like I was. I began to question my faith, and I decided to fully dedicate my life to God. My life saw a dramatic change, in my behavior, my wants, my attitude, stuff like that. I also lost my sexual desires completely. It was great. I felt this joy come over me. I began to want to read the Bible, go to church, go to youth group (which I didn't go to pretty much at all before then) and stuff like that. I wanted to serve in church and go on mission trips. This lasted for maybe a month? And then things began spiralling out of control. My OCD came back, I kept doubting my salvation, and even my faith, and stuff kept happening in my life that made all the good feelings and all the desires and stuff go away. I would never feel secure in Christ for long before something else would come up that would make me question my salvation and stuff again (read any of my many posts here and you'll see what I mean). I began to grow cold toward Christ, I stopped reading my Bible, church and stuff didn't interest me much anymore, I began to spend most of my time doing other things again, I began watching inappropriate content again, and this whole downward spiral of emotions and just stuff in general happened until now, where I feel like I'm back to where I was when I started. I can't seem to get that joy and peace back. I don't see any fruits being produced or whatever in me, only this sin and this lack of fire for God or whatever. I still constantly doubt my salvation, which only makes it worse. I've gotten to the point where at times I've just stopped caring entirely, I've felt like giving up on God completely, because it seemed like nothing was changing. I've prayed and cried out to Him countless times with literal tears, asking Him to save me, change my heart, help me produce good fruit, help me stop sinning, help me repent (I don't feel I'm properly repenting; I confess my sins and ask for forgiveness, but only out of fear? I don't really see any change happening in me, and I don't really commit to turning from my sin. I have a post for that too as well somewhere here where I go more indepth.) I've feared that God had abandoned me, that I was an apostate, reprobate, unforgivable, an Esau (John Piper and John MacArthur, along with few others, have pointed to Esau being unable to repent, though he wanted to and cried for it. I've felt that my heart was just so hardened that I couldn't repent even if I wanted to, and I would wail and sob because I felt I was like Esau. Also a post on here for that.) All of this stuff has kind of driven me from God a bit I guess, and I feel like I'm kind of back to where I was before all this went down. The only differences that I can still observe from then to now is that now I know what salvation looks like and can see that my life does not look like that, my desires have somewhat changed (maybe? I keep praying for God to change my desires and help me to want to stop sinning and to want to serve Him and stuff), and that now I care more about my sin and don't just let it go. I feel some sort of guilt when I sin now and at least feel the need to ask for forgiveness for the most part. I don't know, my life's all over the place right now.

Long story short, when I first began really being concerned about my salvation, I cried out to God, felt saved most of the time, felt this peace and joy come over me, my desires changed to good desires like reading th4 bible, praying, and wanting to go to church more, I spent more time with God, I watched what my actions and behavior, and I saw that it changed. I had no more desire to sin, and I stopped watching inappropriate content completely, which I saw as proof that God was working in my life. I loved it and thought it would last the rest of my life. I thought my whole life was changed. It didn't last that long, I began to worry about salvation again, different things have happened in my life that made me question my salvation and whether I'm even one of the elect. My bad habits returned, my good ones left, my good desires kind of went away and my old ones came back, I don't feel changed anymore, and I feel I'm in the same place I was before this all started. There you have it. I can't seem to stay close to God before too long before drifting again. I constantly ask God to save me and change me into what a Christian is supposed to be. I've prayed for Him to change my heart and help me love Him more and hate sin more, and I've asked Him to change my desires, but it seems like nothing's really changing. There you have it, my life story. Sounds a lot like a bunch of rocky soil to me. Thing is, if I'm not saved now, I don't know if I'll ever be able to, or if I'll ever have any assurance at all ever again. If all of the peace and joy I've felt was fake, if all of the crying out to God did nothing, I don't know what else to do. I can't want salvation any more than I do right now. I can't be any more sincere than I have been over these long past several months. I can't "repent" any more sincerely than I have. I've done all I can. I can't work up any more sincerity in any area. I've poured my whole heart into this; I've cried out to God all that I can. I can't work anything more up in me. I've given it all I have. I've asked over and over for a change. If I'm not saved now because of something I'm not doing any of the above enough or whatever, then I'm never going to be saved. I can't do anything else. I've let God know how much I want it. If I'm not saved yet, I don't think I ever will be. But I definitely don't feel saved and I don't feel changed. I don't see any real changes in my life. I don't think so, anyway. So, I'm stuck. I'm tempted to conclude that my sincerity wasn't enough for God to decide to save me, and since I've been as sincere as I possibly can, I'll never be saved.

Following that logic, I have to conclude that I'm either a reprobate, apostate, have done something unforgivable, or am like Esau where I want to repent, but can't. I can't repent any more sincerely than I have been, but it doesn't feel like true repentance since my sinful desires and attitudes and actions haven't ceased in the slightest, really. Maybe a little, but not much. I have separate posts on all of these thing where I go in more detail. Honestly, to fully understand where I'm at, you've gotta read every post I've ever made on this site. But that's asking way too much.