How old were you when you were saved?

[Walt]

Raised in a strict fundamentalist household, I recall getting saved over and over again as a child, just to be sure I got it right.  I lived in abject terror of the second coming and being left behind.  When I was around 15, a couple of circuit preachers began a so-called “series of meetings” at our place of worship.  These gospel meetings took place six nights a week for a period of about six weeks straight.  They included real “hell-fire” sermons which could be quite terrifying.  People I knew began getting saved around me and I began to question my own salvation.  The two preachers took me aside and asked me to describe my salvation experience.  I told them that I had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior.  After I finished the elder of the two announced that he was afraid that I was not saved because he did not think I had been “convicted” of my sin.  How he knew this he did not say, nor was a Scriptural basis for the conviction requirement provided, but of course I took his words to heart.  So I muddled along for a few days feeling tremendous pressure to get saved.  After a time I made a profession of salvation.  The normal course of events was for the newly saved to get baptized by immersion, a prerequisite for joining the “assembly” and participating in the worship service.  But I was still uncertain of my salvation and did not request baptism, much to the surprise of my parents and the other adults in my life.  I continued on agonizing about all this for a couple of years until one day I said to myself in so many words “I’m sick of this and I’m not going to worry about it anymore.”  A sense of peace came over me immediately and stayed.  For many years I thought the Spirit of God had ceased striving with me (Genesis 6:3). 

In time I joined the military and left home for good, still believing the fundamentalist teachings of my youth but somehow unable to come to grips with them or apply them in my own life.  With the passage of time and exposure to other cultures, ideas, and beliefs I began to seriously question many of those teachings and eventually set them aside. 

Having said all this, I don’t question the sincerity of the others who posted up there.  But this is how it played out for me.

Interesting.  To answer the OP, I was about 9; it was during a VBS in the country.

Regarding the above, it is interesting that you didn't think you were saved -- but you never said why.  Were you expecting to feel something?  Do you doubt that God will do what He said He would do?

We should never be in a hurry either to pronounce someone saved OR lost.  We are individuals, and the Spirit of God works in different ways in our lives.

The Scriptures tell us that the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit that we are God's children.  I don't want to tell my child he is saved because he said a prayer at a young age.  I want him to KNOW he is saved himself.

 

[Walt]

Interesting question.  No, I don't feel the need to be saved from anything.  If I was a drug addict, alcoholic, or compulsive gambler I guess I might feel differently.  Even in my youth when I was immersed in fundamentalist beliefs, I didn't really understand why I had to be "saved."  From what?    I hadn't done anything other than show up on the planet unannounced and through no initiative on my part.  Did a Creator create us knowing full well ahead of time that we had to be saved from ourselves or else would suffer eternal torment?    This notion is and was incomprehensible to me.  Yet, I know some really smart and successful adults who are still caught up in this thing.  Who knows?  Maybe they're right.

This idea does seem hard to get through to those who didn't do really wicked or evil stuff.  But we still have failed to give our Creator His due worship; we still think OUR way is the best; we are still full of pride and what are gifts from God. We truly have turned every one to his own way.  God tells us to come to Him, yet we insist that He comes to us.

God allowed me as a young person to see a very evil and wicked part of myself.  I didn't know it was there; I was taken aback at my joy in destruction and ruin.

Grateful to God for saving me and, with the help of His Holy Spirit, being a creature who can attempt to glorify God.

 

[Matthew1323]

Interesting question.  No, I don't feel the need to be saved from anything.  If I was a drug addict, alcoholic, or compulsive gambler I guess I might feel differently.  Even in my youth when I was immersed in fundamentalist beliefs, I didn't really understand why I had to be "saved."  From what?    I hadn't done anything other than show up on the planet unannounced and through no initiative on my part.  Did a Creator create us knowing full well ahead of time that we had to be saved from ourselves or else would suffer eternal torment?    This notion is and was incomprehensible to me.  Yet, I know some really smart and successful adults who are still caught up in this thing.  Who knows?  Maybe they're right.

This idea does seem hard to get through to those who didn't do really wicked or evil stuff.  But we still have failed to give our Creator His due worship; we still think OUR way is the best; we are still full of pride and what are gifts from God. We truly have turned every one to his own way.  God tells us to come to Him, yet we insist that He comes to us.

God allowed me as a young person to see a very evil and wicked part of myself.  I didn't know it was there; I was taken aback at my joy in destruction and ruin.

Grateful to God for saving me and, with the help of His Holy Spirit, being a creature who can attempt to glorify God.

Excellent points!

 

[Saved by Grace]

I was 6 when I accepted Christ as Savior . I doubted it at a few times in my life because of various issues going on my life. It wasn't until a deacon explained that my Salvation wasn't based on my works or issues or the lack of them and that it was based on the FINISHED work of Jesus Christ that it started to make sense.

I cam from an IFB background that shamed you if you didn't "line up " with everything and have you ducks in a row.