So I started going to church at a really young age and I was put into the grade school program at the mega church near our home. I don't remember how or when I was saved but I always believed in Jesus just because that's what I was told by my parents. I followed the example that my parents did and just treated religion as a sort of chore that you do on Sundays. As I Grew into the middle school progran started attending a church camp once a week every year (mostly because the camp was extremely fun of the church aspect) for that one week I was always super "on fire for God" and wanted to be a good Christian. Of course having very shallow roots I always fell away to my own childish endeavors with very little Christian role models in my family and no huge push from my family. I got a refresher every year at camp just to repeat the cycle "I want to be a great Christian" and then just going back to the world. I hardly knew the Bible at all and just prayed to accept Jesus at Camp every year and I thought that that would suffice for my salvation. I basically took God grace for granted, and concluded that if I believed in Jesus that was enough and I could do whatever else as long as it wasn't "too bad". This definition was of course from my own moral ideas rather than God's. I stopped going to Camp when I was 13 and my family also slowly stopped attending church regularly. I no longer had constant reminders of God but Christianity was always in the back of my mind and I had the distant constant thought that it was right and that I should become a devoted Christian someday....but not now of course. I kind of ignored it all throughout my high school career and would revisit it every once in awhile but never really cared too much. When I was taking a tour of the Capitol building my junior year of high school, we heard a code red over the loudspeaker and it was said that somebody in the building had a gun. I was so afraid because I didn't feel right with God so I just downloaded a Bible app on my phone where we were hiding and just started to read and promise God that I would be a good Christian from then on. I made it out of the building fine and kind of forgot about how scared I was. Fast forward to my senior year of high school and I really started to open up the good book. It was slow but I was just reading through the gospel at my own pace but got discouraged here and there. There was finally a point where I started to genuinely try to abstain from all the sin that I was knowingly doing that was forbidden in the Bible. That's where I am right now. I have been reading the Bible lot and joined a good bible-believing Baptist Church. I now realize the true gospel. We are saved by grace through faith and not our own works. We can only please God with faith and your good works should be evidence of your faith and obedience to God, not your means of salvation. I was mistaken in thinking that the head knowledge that Jesus is Lord was enough and that I could just keep on sinning as much as I wanted. After reading parts of the bible such as Hebrews 6:4-8 and other warning such as when Esau was rejected in his repentance though he "saught it with tears". I wonder if I am beyond repentance. Ever since my slow but sure repentance I have quit looking at pornography , quit cheating in school, started volunteering even after not needing volunteer hours, and I've been trying to take captive of my thoughts and judge my actions by what God's word tells me to do. I was doing ok until I came to warning passages such as these
"lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears"
Hebrews 12:16-17 NKJV
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame."
Hebrews 6:4-6 NKJV
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.
Hebrews 10:26-27 NKJV
Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
Matthew 13:3-6 NKJV
and they've just made me feel scared as if God is given up on me and my own deceitful heart is fooling me into thinking that I am in fellowship with him. Of course I fear God and his wrath and that's part of the reason I obey him, but I really want to love him. I have prayed that he would turn my fear into the perfect love that is said to drive out fear. When trying to impress one of my atheist peers before putting down my firm roots, I said that religion was made up by men to find meaning in life. I feel horrible about this and I feel as if I've betrayed God and that this would be impossible to forgive because I had already heard the gospel and accepted it. I doubt that I really meant this because of the fact that I am so drawn to God in the present but it doesn't change the fact that I said it. I just wanted to know what you guys think of my situation and what your perspective on it is. Do fit the picture of an apostate as described? Am I in the same boat as Esau? Has God rejected my plea for fellowship and mercy asked on the basis of his son's perfect sacrifice because of my actions?
"lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears"
Hebrews 12:16-17 NKJV
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame."
Hebrews 6:4-6 NKJV
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.
Hebrews 10:26-27 NKJV
Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
Matthew 13:3-6 NKJV
and they've just made me feel scared as if God is given up on me and my own deceitful heart is fooling me into thinking that I am in fellowship with him. Of course I fear God and his wrath and that's part of the reason I obey him, but I really want to love him. I have prayed that he would turn my fear into the perfect love that is said to drive out fear. When trying to impress one of my atheist peers before putting down my firm roots, I said that religion was made up by men to find meaning in life. I feel horrible about this and I feel as if I've betrayed God and that this would be impossible to forgive because I had already heard the gospel and accepted it. I doubt that I really meant this because of the fact that I am so drawn to God in the present but it doesn't change the fact that I said it. I just wanted to know what you guys think of my situation and what your perspective on it is. Do fit the picture of an apostate as described? Am I in the same boat as Esau? Has God rejected my plea for fellowship and mercy asked on the basis of his son's perfect sacrifice because of my actions?
