A.W. Tozer said, “It
is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been
brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they
have not been saved.”
D. James Kennedy said,
“The vast majority of people who are members of churches in America today are
not Christians. I say that without the slightest contradiction. I base it on
empirical evidence of twenty-four years of examining thousands of people.”
Friend, we argue over so many petty things.
May I suggest we have lost sight of the most important debate of all, “What is
salvation?” My theology teaches that salvation happens when a man repents and
places his trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).
I would like to
present thirteen ways that we have re-defined how a person becomes a true
convert. Have we done this intentionally? Certainly not. We have simply created
lingo that has a grain of truth in Scripture, but it is so open to
interpretation that the un-converted understand it in ways that lead to false
conversions.
1. Make Jesus your
Lord and Savior. We cannot make Jesus
our Lord and Savior, He is our Lord and Savior. We are living in rebellion to
Him and He commands us to repent and trust Him.
2. Ask Jesus into your
heart. Does Jesus come into
our hearts? Yes He does. The question is, “How does He get in there?” It is not
by simply asking Him in; it is by repentance and faith.
3. Just believe in
Jesus. The demons believe and
they tremble. We must repent and trust.
4. You have a
God-shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it. We have far more than a hole that needs to be
filled so we can feel complete; we have a wretched, deceitful, sinful heart
that needs cleansing. Repentance and faith applies the blood of the lamb for
that cleansing.
5. Accept Jesus. Whoa. We need to accept Jesus? This is
entirely backward. We need Jesus to accept us–and He will, if we repent and
trust.
6. Make a decision for
Jesus. Decisional
regeneration puts man in the driver’s seat of salvation. When we repent and
trust, Jesus decides to save us. That puts Him in the driver’s seat…where He
demands.
7. It is easy to
believe. While the formula of
repentance and faith sounds simple, a complete surrendering of self in
repentance is anything but easy. It’s hard.
8. God loves you and
has a wonderful plan for your life. The only promises for the convert are trials, temptation and
persecution. If that is how you define a wonderful life, fine. Otherwise we
must command all men everywhere to repent and trust.
9. Come to Jesus just
as you are. We should come to
Jesus just as the sinners we are, but He also expects a broken heart and
contrite spirit demonstrated in repentance and faith.
10. Come to Jesus and
you will receive forgiveness of sins and ________________ (fill in the blank with money, health, a
healed marriage). Jesus didn’t promise healed marriages; in fact He promised
broken homes because we would divide when one member repents and trusts.
11. Come to Jesus and
experience love, joy, peace. Do we get the fruit of the Spirit upon conversion? Yes. But if
we come seeking the gifts and not the giver, we will receive neither. Instead,
we must repent and trust.
12. Jesus is the
missing piece. Um, no, the God of the
universe is not the missing piece, He demands that He is the center of our
lives when we repent and trust.
13. Jesus is better
than fame and fortune. That is an
understatement, and frankly, it is insulting. Saying Jesus is better than money
is like saying that a steak dinner is better than eating a dung hill. He defies
comparison and we trivialize the Son of God. Instead, we should be pleading
with all men everywhere to repent and trust.
If I showed up at your
door with a can of grapefruit juice and a roll of paper towels and offered to
change your oil, you would say, “No thanks.” If we wouldn’t let someone mess
with our car using the wrong method, why do we allow the Gospel to be presented
so ambiguously?
Would you let a doctor
operate on your child who was “sort of” accurate? The salvation of men is far
more important than an appendix.
I beg you to consider
how you share the Gospel. You and I know what we are talking about when we use
these phrases, but do the unregenerate? Is it possible that we have so many
backsliders today because they never slid forward in the first place? Is it
because they were never told that they must repent and trust?
If we are willing to
debate shag verse plush in the fellowship hall, shouldn’t we be more concerned
about an issue that has eternal consequences?
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