When I was six I decided to be a truck driver. I played with trucks. I looked at trucks. I even talked to a truck driver. He invited me to sit in his cab and pull the chain to blow the horn.
Best. Day. Ever.
As I grew I learned more things. Truck driving is not all easy and is rather boring. They don’t make loads of money even though they drive stuff bigger than our car.
Then I learned that I was legally blind and would never be able to drive. That sort of killed that childhood decision.
Kids decide things all the time. These decisions are made with incomplete information and childish resolve, which often fades with reality and the awareness of other choices.
Many six-year olds decide to “accept Jesus.” As they grow they learn more options, they learn that there’s no money in it, they learn that it goes against their very nature and their childish resolve vanishes.
It is sad to see many kids “accept Christ” and then live horrible lives and constantly be assured that they are saved because they “said the prayer” as a kid.
People are not saved because they said a ten second prayer as a child. You do not know you are saved because you remember the day you said your prayer.
You know you are saved because you continue in the faith. This is so frequently said in Scripture it boggles the mind how we’ve seemingly missed it completely.
Many parents give up teaching their children because “They’re already saved.” They don’t pray for their souls or continue to teach them. They sit back because their job is seemingly done.
Hell is populated with people who said prayers when they were six. Life is long. The test of time demonstrates whether faith exists, not because a kid said something one time.
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31).
“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith” (Acts 14:22).
“Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” (Romans 11:22)
“By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:2)
“. . . to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel,” (Colossians 1:22,23)
“For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 3:8)
“Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” (1 Timothy 4:16)
anti-itch meditation 
Right on Jeff. We need to present salvation as a process rather than a one-and-done event. The moment when God regenerates and justifies us is just the begining of our salvation. After that He has a life of faith planned for us where we grow more and more into the likenss of His Son. We must persevere with the Holy Spirit in our faith until our salvation is complete and we are glorified. There is just no room for couch potatoe christians who just want to say a prayer an be done with it.
I think salvation is an immediate act of God in regenerating a soul. I hesitate to use the wording that “salvation is a process.” However, I do think we tend to make faith passive, or at least past tense.
We are not told that the “just had faith one time.” Rather “the just shall live by faith.” I think we need to stress the continuance of true faith as opposed to the fleeting nature of false profession.
James 1: 4
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Our faith is proved real if we persevere to the end, our perseverance is the proof of salvation, not a little prayer.
Matt. 10:22 – “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
The problem is that salvation just means to be “saved” from something. Therefore it can apply to any act of God which saves man from something. The deliverance at the Red Sea was salvation for the Israelites, but it didn’t give them the new birth.
In the Old Testament sanctuary service, the word “atonement” was used, which means pretty much the same as salvation. There were many different kinds of atonements for different problems, and also certain atonements made for the sanctuary itself. All of these represented the power of God put forth to separate sin from His people, therefore all of them were acts of salvation.
There is a tendency to make Christianity rather “self-centered”…as if it were all about me: “my salvation”, “my new birth”, “Christ died for me”, “my eternal life in heaven.” But this is only a small part of a larger work of salvation, which is to save the whole world from the bondage of sin, and even wider than that, to save the universe from ever experimenting with sin again, and to justify God from the lies that Satan has charged Him with.
We are only a small part of that larger plan. It is our privilege to witness to God’s truth and power by experiencing His salvation personally, but let’s not stop there. He justifies us, now let’s go on and justify Him before the world and the witnessing angels.