Repeat this sinner’s prayer after me and you will be saved – huh? Did you ask Jesus into your heart? Huh? Come to the front of the church and repeat this prayer and you will be saved. Huh? This is playing on a person’s emotions – the warm fuzzies.
No where in all of scripture are we instructed to ask Jesus into our hearts to be saved. Here is what scripture instructs:
“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’” (Rom 10:9-11 ESV)
The word heart is defined as: “the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence of the will and character”
Our understanding of heart today is an emotional one. For instance, years ago, my heart hurt when I saw my macaw become terrified when he saw me with a hammer and thought I was going to strike him. My heart hurt because he had experienced that punishment in a previous home and thought he was going to experience that physical punishment. I had an emotional response to his fear, I felt bad and saddened that he was struck in such a manner and I responded to that emotional experience of mine. I dropped the hammer, cuddled and reassured him as best as I could. That emotional response is not lasting. He’s been with me six years and I expect him to get used to my ways. I don’t have those emotional responses, if he is frightened over something such as someone walking by with something that reminds him of that previous experience, I either ignore him if I am doing something or if we are outside, I shield him so that he feels safe. My strong emotions over his fear as passed. Sure, I feel bad that he experienced that and try and shield him.
Sure, when we are saved, many of us do experience an emotional response. But the emotions, asking Jesus into our heart, is not what saves. It is confessing and believing. The heart is not what believes – at least the heart as we speak of it today, the seat of emotions. I believe that the earth travels around the sun. I believe in my heart that the earth travels around the sun. In other words, I have no doubt in any way that this is the course that the earth takes every single day, and that in one year’s time, it will make a complete rotation. I am as convinced that this is the course that the earth takes as I am that I there is a tree outside my window that I can see right now as I type this blog post. I can see the tree but I cannot see the earth make its course around the sun. Yet, both are as equally true to me. I have no emotional response to either yet, I believe both equally with all my heart. In other words, I believe with my mind that is my intellect, that both are true.
I was not always convinced that salvation came through Jesus or that He was God in the flesh. Yet, now I believe with my heart that is with my intellect and mind, that there is no salvation apart from Him. While I have no emotional attachment to the fact that the earth makes a rotation around the sun, I do have an emotional response to my Savior. I see neither yet I am convinced of both.
Scripture tells us to “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Mat 22:37 ESV) Both the word heart and mind are used here but there is a distinction. Heart is defined as ‘thoughts or feelings’ while mind is defined as ‘the exercise of thought or understanding.’
To be saved, the commandment is something that is performed or carried out, an action on our part. We confess and believe that He is Lord was raised from the dead and believe that He was raised from the dead. There is no scripture where we ‘invite or ask Him into our heart.’ Belief means that there is a certainty that something is truth or a fact much like we have a certainty that the earth rotates around the sun. When a Christian is first saved, that is when they believe with their mind (i.e. with their whole being, their heart), there are different emotional responses but those emotions have nothing to do with the act of salvation. There is a belief and then we receive. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2)
We do not ask Jesus to come into our heart. To the contrary, we are commanded to believe with our heart, that is with our mind, will and emotions, and to confess or acknowledge with our mouth. There is no invitation involved.
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2 comments
Lori
June 22, 2009 at 8:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well stated. Many years ago, when I was a new christian, I remember spending time looking through the bible for “the sinner’s prayer” and then being bewildered that I couldn’t find it. I remember other christians talking about the exact moment when Jesus entered their hearts — what they were doing, what their reaction was, etc. I remember one christian I knew saying that if you can’t remember the exact day and time of your salvation, then maybe you didn’t really have one.
My experience is that I would listen each week to the gospel (about the atoning work of Christ on the cross) and over time, the knowledge and belief in this just kept growing in my awareness until a steady confidence became firmly established. That is, one day it occurred to me that I did believe and had for quite a while. It was all very subtle and not a slam-bam as it is for some christians.
Great post.
tishrei
June 22, 2009 at 12:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Like you, I did not have that emotional slam-bam. I was home alone — I remember the month and the year but not the day. But I had been going through this process for a year and it hit me that it was all true. No sinner’s prayer, no alter call, none of that.
Many of what goes on today is not found in scripture and I have it in my heart to blog about it. This is probably my first in the topics I want to touch on.
Anyway, thanks for your response –
p.s. I loved your whale story — awesome post!