If you are like most christians, your story might go something like this: you were in a revival service at your “church,” or you were at a youth camp listening to appeals by your youth pastor, or a preacher gave particularly strong emotional pleas after his sermon, and you went forward, talked with someone in a small room, and then repeated a sinner’s prayer.
Usually, what would happen next is that the person would be brought before the “church,” and declared to be saved. Often, the preacher would then say, “ . . . and don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are not born again.”
The real problem with that whole scenario is that it, in no way, is what it means to be born again.
And then, to add insult to heresy, you probably were told that you needed to be baptized in water to publicly declare your salvation (which was only declared by man in the first place).
If this resembles your story—even remotely—then I can only urge you to learn the difference between what christianity teaches as “salvation,” and what true salvation actually is. True salvation is not a decision man makes, or a prayer he prays. True salvation is not being dunked in physical water, nor is it something that any scripture can confirm.
True salvation is the receiving of the covenant, and being told by the Holy Spirit—directly, personally, uniquely, and literally—that you have been adopted as a child of Yah. If that has not happened with you, then all the sinner’s prayers, all the verses in scripture, all the dunks in a pool of water, all the obedience to commandments, and all the changes of lifestyle, actually amount to nothing—they do not give eternal life.
True salvation is something that is received, not a decision that is made by humans.
For more information: Is Salvation Hard to Receive?