I was raised in the Southern Baptist Convention tradition. OSAS was emphasized greatly. My father recently told me that he likes to listen to feel-good sermons nowadays (à la Joel Osteen) because when he was young he heard so many sermons that seemed calculated to make him doubt his own salvation. I never got that impression when I was a youth, but later on, when I got very serious about consecration to God, the nagging sense I developed was that my salvation depended upon my sincerity at some earlier time and I worried about the spaces of time between my seemingly inevitable rededications. Finally, I got so tired of this that I began to search for a new model of assurance. It took over 20 years for me to find it and it is nothing like what I believed previously. I came to look upon eternal security as grievously hollow and impractical. I could never discern the fine line between mere backsliding and the realization that I had never been "saved" to begin with. And I have come to believe that my salvation is much more for Jesus's sake than my own. I parted ways with SBC orthodoxy in 1990. As hard as it may be for some to believe, this is more of a testimony than a provocation to debate. But friendly discussion about the topic of testimony of assurance is encouraged. And I myself have more to say about this.
What undergirds your assurance of redemption?
What undergirds your assurance of redemption?