What would it be like for you to have really "meant it"? Do you know? How much "really meant it" is enough before God accepts you as His own? I'm pretty sure you don't know (and neither does anyone else). Nowhere in God's word does He say to us, "This is the exact amount of faith that'll save you." And this is so because it isn't the amount of your faith, it isn't it's quality, that saves you.
Did God not understand that you were a very young child and could only respond to Him as such? Does God expect a little child to come to Him in the way an adult would? Obviously not. But God still accepts the little child who comes to Him, ignorant and childish though they may be because He only accepts any of us because of what Jesus has done on the cross for us, not because we're good enough, or sincere enough, or sufficiently full of faith, or whatever. Do you remember the story of the man with the demon-possessed child who comes to Jesus and asks him to free his boy from the demons that have him? Here it is:
Mark 9:17-27
17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”
19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”
20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.
22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”
27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
How did Jesus respond to the man when he said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"? Did Jesus say to him, "Well, until you believe enough, I'm not helping you"? Did Jesus say to him, "I only save those who really believe I can, who are sincere enough in their faith. So come back to me when that's you"? No. Though, the man had confessed to having doubts about Jesus' ability to help his son, Jesus still freed his son. He did this because he is our Savior, not because we deserve to be saved, not because we've done something to earn being saved, but because he loves us.
Do you really believe God loves you?
You see, it isn't the depth of our faith, it's sincerity or strength, that saves us. It's the object of our faith, it's the Person in whom we're believing, who saves us: Jesus Christ, the Savior. And he saves us because he is a loving, gracious, merciful God, not because of something in us that makes us worthy of his love.
How eager we are, though, to stand equal with God! Even when it comes to our being saved, we want to take the central place, to stand only where Jesus ought to stand, and share in his glory as our Savior. We do this by making our faith, our having "really meant it" when we came to God for salvation, the key to our salvation. By this means, we step into the role of Savior, pushing into a place that only Jesus has the right to occupy.
But God doesn't accept you as one of His own because of who you are or because of how much you've managed to believe in Him. He certainly doesn't accept you because you've managed to "clean yourself up" and make yourself deserving of His GIFT of salvation. No, God is willing to receive you as His own, to adopt you into His family, ONLY because you've trusted in Jesus as your Savior and submitted to him as your Lord, confessing your sin and expecting that God will, over time, change you and make you the person He wants you to be.
I became a Christian at the age of eight because I, too, was afraid of hell. But because God is good, because He is incredibly patient and faithful, because He loves me more than I can understand, He worked in me over time, helping me to abandon my fear and settle confidently and joyfully in His love for me. His First and Great Commandment is, after all, to love Him with all of my being (Matthew 22:36-38) and the more I know and trust that God loves me as much as the Bible tells me He does, the better able I am to love Him and rest easy in my salvation, His love dissolving all my fear.
1 John 4:16-19
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
