Realities of the Sinners Prayer

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When you became a Christian, was your salvation experience based upon you saying the "sinner's prayer"? Were you asked to repeat something to this effect; "Dear Jesus, I believe in my heart that I am a sinner. Please forgive me for all of my sins. I believe in my heart that You died on the cross for my sins, and that You raised from the dead. I believe You are the Risen Lord and Savior. Please come into my heart and change me. Please help me to live for you now. In Jesus' name, Amen."?

For those of you who were introduced to Jesus by saying the “sinners prayer” there is a danger to be aware of. The danger to be aware of is basing your relationship with Jesus off of repeating the sinner’s prayer. The sinner’s prayer is only a tool that many Christians' use in order to help someone who is unsure of how to pray, or who has actually never prayed before, express their desire to God to be forgiven of their sins and put their trust in Jesus.

However, this should never be used as a qualifier for a persons’ salvation, nor a means of assurance of one’s salvation.

The reason I say this is because there are multitudes of people who say a prayer to invite Jesus into their hearts, but they never express any desire to get to know Jesus or follow Him. In fact their relationship with Jesus and growth in Jesus never makes it any further than saying "the sinners prayer". If this is what defines a person’s relationship with God, it is a clear indicator that they came to Jesus for the wrong reasons, and are no closer to Salvation now, than before they said the sinner’s prayer.

 Now mind you, I am not talking about anyone of us being perfect, as we are all work in progresses. But I am talking about the biblical concept of repentance, which is that we stop living life our way, and begin living life God's way.

When we look at the gospel’s, the book of Acts, and the New Testament epistles we never once see Jesus, the 12 apostles, or any believers in the early church tell someone to “invite Jesus into their hearts” if they want to become Christians.
  • The message Jesus preached was, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. REPENT, and BELIEVE in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
  • The message Peter preached was, “REPENT, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
  • The message Paul preached was, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands ALL MEN everywhere to REPENT, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man (Jesus) whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).
It is clear that the bible teaches us that we are called to stop living life our way, and start living life God's way by coming to Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30), following Jesus (cf. Matthew 16:24), believing in Jesus (John 3:16), and demonstrating this new reality by desiring to grow in our faith day by day (cf. Romans 12:1-2), in order to become more like Jesus (Romans 8:29).

I would also like to point out that “receiving” Jesus into your heart or into your life is not a biblical reality or event that we see taking place in Scripture either, even though we as Christians use this terminology regularly to describe someone who comes to faith in Jesus. It is really a misleading statement.

When looking through the Gospels we never hear of someone “receiving” or “accepting” Jesus as their personal Savior, but instead, we read that Jesus challenges those who call upon His name for salvation to “come” and “follow” Him (cf. Matthew 4:19; Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus also tells any would-be followers, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). He goes onto say, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). As you can clearly see, there is a big difference in terminology and expectations here (cf. Romans 12:1-2).

To receive or accept Jesus can turn into a passive intellectual event in a persons’ life. To follow Jesus on the other hand takes commitment, determination, and daily action.

Once again, it is clear that the Bible instructs us to repent and believe, not invite or accept. When we measure the culture of mainstream Christianity today, it seems to be clear there has been a major role reversal that has taken place within the church when it comes to defining what a relationship with Jesus is supposed to look like.

Rather than us responding to Jesus' invitation to "come" and "follow" Him by denying ourselves and picking up our cross and living for Him, we have been conditioned to think we are supposed to be inviting Jesus into our lives and into our world, asking Him to follow us around everywhere we go, and wait upon us as our personal servant. We have become like children who expect their parents to follow them around in a toy store. Every aisle the child charges down looking for toys, he or she expects his parents to follow right behind in tow, purchasing everything they want, at times throwing a fit if they don't get their way. 

When you think about it, there is a lot of truth to what I am saying here. But this is not biblical Christianity, nor is it living out the faith in a way that honors Christ and makes Him Lord of our lives and the ruler of our heart.

So my encouragement to all of us is that if we choose to invite people into a relationship with Jesus by using the sinner’s prayer as a tool, let’s be clear to those we are sharing with of what the sinners prayer actually is.
  • It is a prayer that we say to help them express their desire to God that they want to repent from their sins (Mark 1:15), profess their belief in Jesus as the Risen Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10), and desire to stop living for themselves and begin living fully for God (Matthew 16:24-25; Romans 12:1-2).
In addition to this, let’s be clear to explain the following:
  • The sinner’s prayer is not what saves you, nor is it to be used as a qualifying action for you to become a Christian. Jesus said “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The way a person is born again, is by coming to Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30) in faith (John 3:16), repenting from their sins (Mark 1:15), and following Him (Matthew 16:24). When this has taken place in a person's life, they can say with confidence that they are "in Christ" and have become "a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

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