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The Sinner's Prayer/ Asking Jesus into your heart


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Of all the verses in the bible that describe God's requirement for man to receive salvation what percentage of them use the words "Faith", "Believe" or "Repent" as opposed to "Ask Jesus into your heart" or even praying a prayer for that matter? I'll help you out, Faith and Believe are found the most over 100 times, Repent is probably second with at least 33 times, and you could maybe argue that 3-5 particular passages describe a prayer, and ZERO times do we find man commanded to "Ask Jesus into your heart"

Now take those figures and ask yourself if those numbers accurately reflects what we most often emphasis as man's responsibility in salvation is? Maybe we need to rethink about how we are explaining the Gospel to people.

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While "Ask Jesus into your heart" can be considered poor terminology, I do not think it is bad theology. I believe its is based on this passage Galatians 4:6-7 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Giving it this sense that the sinner becomes a Child of God by God sending forth the Spirit into our hearts, it is not wrong, when paired with a clear gospel message, to ask God, in prayer, to give us His Spirit and make us His child.

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On 4/18/2018 at 3:52 AM, John Young said:

While "Ask Jesus into your heart" can be considered poor terminology, I do not think it is bad theology. I believe its is based on this passage Galatians 4:6-7 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Giving it this sense that the sinner becomes a Child of God by God sending forth the Spirit into our hearts, it is not wrong, when paired with a clear gospel message, to ask God, in prayer, to give us His Spirit and make us His child.

Where in Galatians do you see that we should direct sinners to "Ask Jesus into your heart" from that passage anymore than we should direct sinners to "Ask God to give you his Holy Spirit" for salvation based on Ephesians 1:13-14? There is a whole list of things in the bible that are a RESULT of salvation. Not sure why we have popularized one particular result of salvation to emphasize in asking for in a prayer for salvation.  Where do we see in any of the Apostolic preaching where sinners are directed to "Ask Jesus into your heart"? Perhaps we should change our words and methods to line up with the Bible. The biblical message is to preach the Gospel. Many time we find commands to repent and believe the Gospel, but none to ask Christ into one's heart. 

The whole "Asking Jesus into your heart" thing is really sloppy evangelism, We need to stop placing the emphasis on praying a particular prayer and putting more emphasis on the objective truth of the Gospel and direct sinners to TRUST on Christ. 

I fear that the reason why many young people grow up to doubt there salvation and why many false converts have been given assurance is because of our sloppy evangelism techniques. Why can't we just stick to the Bible? Why do we always have to PUSH for people to make a "decision" to "ask Jesus into their heart?" Do we not trust preaching the Gospel? I am just wondering, do we really believe the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation? Or do people need us to direct them to "Ask Jesus into your heart"? 

if God wanted us to tell people to ask Jesus into their heart, why did he not give a single command or example in the scripture of the apostles doing so? 

It seems to me that the whole "Ask Jesus into you heart" thing is a tradition of men and just sloppy evangelism.

 

 

Edited by Jordan Kurecki
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When I first began witnessing to people, this is what I was taught. I took a course on child evangelism and learned that children have a difficult time understanding this concept, which was my experience. I now ask people if they would like to put their faith in Jesus Christ for Salvation. I believe this and doctrine like this have caused people to move from Fundamental churches to "Modern" churches. As I talk to younger families today, they struggled with teachings that weren't found in the Bible. Even though the items they shared were indeed Biblical, just as someone put "Sloppy Theology".

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11 hours ago, Pastorj said:

When I first began witnessing to people, this is what I was taught. I took a course on child evangelism and learned that children have a difficult time understanding this concept, which was my experience. I now ask people if they would like to put their faith in Jesus Christ for Salvation. I believe this and doctrine like this have caused people to move from Fundamental churches to "Modern" churches. As I talk to younger families today, they struggled with teachings that weren't found in the Bible. Even though the items they shared were indeed Biblical, just as someone put "Sloppy Theology".

I also was taught and used the same thing. In the last few years I have consciously focused on carefully explaining sin, the Gospel message, and I have made it a point of emphasizing that God requires faith in the Gospel of Christ for salvation, I have really gotten away from the idea of trying to get someone to pray a prayer. Not that I dont ever encourage someone to pray, but look at the book of Acts see how often they encouraged someone to pray for salvation.. and then see how often they preached the Gospel and called men to repent and believe. 

Edited by Jordan Kurecki
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9 hours ago, Jordan Kurecki said:

I also was taught and used the same thing. In the last few years I have consciously focused on carefully explaining sin, the Gospel message, and I have made it a point of emphasizing that God requires faith in the Gospel of Christ for salvation, I have really gotten away from the idea of trying to get someone to pray a prayer. Not that I dont ever encourage someone to pray, but look at the book of Acts see how often they encouraged someone to pray for salvation.. and then see how often they preached the Gospel and called men to repent and believe. 

Though the prayer does not save, Romans says

10:9-10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation

Without the mouth, there is no salvation. I think it is more of a balanced approach. I agree to teach them the Gospel message. I don't believe in forcing someone to pray and I also no longer ask them if they would like to get saved. I have led more people to the Lord by sharing the Gospel and then letting them ask "What must I do to be saved".

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