The church that I spent a good majority of my adult life in preached it this way:
The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
to obey the gospel, you repent (death), be baptized (burial) in the Name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of your sins, and Receive the HG (resurrection), evidenced by speaking in tongues.
After you are born again of the water and the Spirit, (baptism/HG), the you must obey holiness standards, be at church every time the door is opened, pray every day, fast weekly, pay tithes, ready your bible, win souls, ect, ect, or you are going to hell.
Now you can live in this atmosphere and still have a lot of heart and devotion to God, and there are alot of things that work out ok, but you live in constant fear of missing the mark and going to hell also.
I have won many souls to the Lord, and it came by prayer and fasting and teaching bible studies, but it also came from fear that if I didn't do it, I would go to hell. There came a point when I gave up and said I just couldn't live it anymore. There came a point when I was convinced it was impossible to be saved.
Then, for reasons I don't want to elaborate on, everything changed and my old church is gone. well not really gone, reborn as a new different church.
(at this point I'm skipping some of the story, fast forward in time)
So I come here and learn that the gospel is really the good news about Jesus.
and that I've been very focused on
Acts 2:38, 3 steps to being born again.
but forgot that Romans says we are justified by faith when we repent.
And I've been baptized in Jesus name and filled with the HG, evidenced by speaking in tongues.
But a part of me is still afraid that I can't be good enough to go to heaven and that possibly I'm on my way to hell.
So, I have to decide between going back to something I don't want to go back to so I can make sure I'm saved, or going to a church that is probably more like Sherri's church, that would be much less stressfull, probably a lot more enjoyable, but I need to make very sure that I'm going to be saved.
I have many friends in both churches, for when my former church changed to not teaching standards, and believing saved at repentance, (although they still baptize in Jesus Name, believe in oneness, and receiving the HG w/tongues), a good percentage left for the UPC church nearby.
My sister is on board with going to our old church, she feels comfortable there.
I somewhat want to do that also. I'm just afraid I may be wrong. If it's a matter of heaven or hell, I can't afford to be wrong.
I would also prefer to convince myself that universal reconciliation is real.
Or maybe the destruction of lost souls would be good, even if you miss heaven, you don't scream in agony for eternity, you just are gone.
I would not say I'm especially enjoying my salvation atm. Instead I would say I'm very torn and don't know what to do.
And discussing this on this forum is probably not wise, I know.
But now maybe you can understand why I keep asking questions, and going over it over and over again.
How can one way be right, and then all of a sudden, no, It's really another way.
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