The music weeps, the preacher pleads, “Give your heart to Jesus. You have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” Dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who want to get their spiritual life on track make their way to the altar. They ask Jesus into their heart. Cut to three months later. Nobody has seen our new convert in church. The follow up committee calls him and encourages him to attend a Bible study, but to no avail. We label him a backslider and get ready for the next outreach event.
Our beloved child lies in her snuggly warm bed and says, “Yes, Daddy. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” You lead her in “the prayer” and hope that it sticks. You spend the next ten years questioning if she really, really meant it. Puberty hits and the answer reveals itself. She backslides. We spend the next ten years praying that she will come to her senses.
Telling someone to ask Jesus into their hearts has a very typical result, backsliding. The Bible says that a person who is soundly saved puts his hand to the plow and does not look back because he is fit for service. In other words, a true convert cannot backslide. If a person backslides, he never slid forward in the first place. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. (2nd Corinthians 5) No backsliding there.
Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were misinformed. If you have ever told someone to ask Jesus into their heart, you have more than likely produced a false convert. Here is why:
10 Reasons Not To “Ask Jesus Into Your Heart”
1. It is not in the Bible.
There is not a single verse that even hints we should say a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts. Some use Revelations 3:20 to tell us that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts begging to come in, ”Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” There are two reasons that interpretation is wrong. The context tells us that the door Jesus is knocking on is the door of the church, not the human heart. Jesus is not knocking to enter someone’s heart but to have fellowship with His church. Even if the context didn’t tell us this, we would be forcing a meaning into the text. How do we know it is our heart he is knocking at? Why not our car door? How do we know he isn’t knocking on our foot? To suggest that he is knocking on the door of our heart is superimposing a meaning on the text that simply does not exist. The Bible does not instruct us to ask Jesus into our heart. This alone should resolve the issue, nevertheless, here are nine more reasons.
2. Asking Jesus into your heart is a saying that makes no sense.
What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will He somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does He reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it. Pastor Dennis Rokser reminds us that little children think literally and can easily be confused (or frightened) at the prospect of asking Jesus into their heart.
3. In order to be saved, a man must repent. (Acts 2:38)
Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance.
4. In order to be saved, a man must trust in Jesus Christ. (Acts 16:31)
Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of faith.
5. The person who wrongly believes they are saved will have a false sense of security.
Millions of people who sincerely, but wrongly, asked Jesus into their hearts think they are saved but struggle to feel secure. They live in doubt and fear because they do not have the Holy Spirit giving them assurance of salvation.
6. The person who asks Jesus into his heart will likely end up inoculated, bitter and backslidden.
Because he did not get saved by reciting a formulaic prayer, he will grow disillusioned with Jesus, the Bible, church and fellow believers. His latter end will be worse than the first.
7. It presents God as a beggar just hoping you will let Him into your busy life.
This presentation of God robs Him of His sovereignty.
8. The cause of Christ is ridiculed.
Visit an atheist web-site and read the pagans who scoff, “How dare those Christians tell us how to live when they get divorced more than we do? Who are they to say homosexuals shouldn’t adopt kids when tens of thousands of orphans don’t get adopted by Christians?” Born again believers adopt kids and don’t get divorced. People who ask Jesus into their hearts do. Jesus gets mocked when false converts give Him a bad name.
9. The cause of evangelism is hindered.
While it is certainly easier to get church members by telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts, try pleading with someone to make today the day of their salvation. Get ready for a painful response. “Why should I become a Christian when I have seen so called Christians act worse than a pagan?” People who ask Jesus into their hearts give pagans an excuse for not repenting.
10. Here is the scary one.
People who have asked Jesus into their hearts, but never repented and put their trust in Christ, will perish on the Day of Judgment. How tragic that millions of people think they are right with God when they are not. How many people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord” on judgment day will be “Christians” who asked Jesus into their hearts?
So, what must one do to be saved?
Repent and trust. (Hebrews 6:1)
The Bible makes it clear that all men must repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Every man does have a “God shaped hole in their heart”,but that hole is not contentment, fulfillment and peace. Every man’s heart problem is righteousness. Instead of preaching that Jesus fulfills, we must preach that God judges and Jesus satisfies God’s judgment. If a man will repent and place his trust in Him.
If you are reading this and you asked Jesus into your heart, but never repented and put your trust in Christ, chances are good you had a spiritual buzz for a while, but now you struggle to read your Bible, tithe, attend church and pray. Perhaps you were told you would have contentment, purpose and a better life if you just ask Jesus into your heart. I am sorry, that was a lie. Please take a moment to understand the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you have been preaching that people should ask Jesus into their hearts, I beg you to stop immediately. You will give an account for all the souls you have led astray.
Author: Unknown
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I was listening to Piper this morning preach on Hebrews 3 and heard a powerful comment from him. My paraphrase of the comment is that we are not to hope in our past actions to save us but in Christ’s promises. He is preaching on the fact that continuance in the faith is the sign of salvation – not that it saves us, but it is a sign that we were actually saved. People often take these passages in Hebrews to mean that we can lose our salvation (as if it is something we gained in the first place – it was given by God’s efforts not ours) rather than the correct understanding which is that said salvation was never there’s to begin with.
Asking Jesus into your heart again falls to our human desire for this to be about our effort and not God’s gracious gift. Our salvation is fully His effort: given to us by the Merciful One who even has to give me the faith to believe in Him.
Nice summation of just some of the problems with the casual and lazy versions of the “gospel” that pass for faith.
I wish we could all as believers do away with this type “Christian Colloquialism” and use precise, well-defined, biblical terminology that express true biblical faith.
If “continuance in the faith is the sign of Salvation” then my challenge and question is how do you explain those whose works are burned up but are saved as though by fire in I Cor.? these are obviously Christians since it is at the Judgment seat of Christ, not the Great White Throne…but also these bore no fruit, so there would be no real evidence of their fath, yet “they will be saved as though by fire”
But I agree with the article 100% percent…Repentance and Trusting Him as your Savior,or to put it another way, asking Jesus to save you from what you now beleive are the consequences of your sin, are the “essential requirement of salvation”.
Adding anything or taking anything away is not the true “Gospel of Truth, Grace, and Salvation”.
Jeremiah 17:9 Says that our hearts are deceitful. By asking Lord Jesus to enter it, you will be saved. In Romans 10:9 says if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. But in John 3:3 Jesus answered Nicodemus saying that you must be born again to see the kingdom of God. So I can see how people might have a problem with a so called Christian saying that they have asked Jesus into their heart but are still living in sin our going to heaven. Go back to the day they have made that prayer, Did they truly mean it in their heart? Because if they didn’t they are not born again. Their must be a true repentance. Matthew 9:23 depart from Me,you who practice lawlessness! You see this all starts where your heart is. To pray for help calling on the Lord to enter you heart, for someone like myself has truly changed my life and the lives of my family around me seeing the power of Christ that lives in me that day that I asked him in. Revelation 3:20 is referring to church not as a whole but to each individual within it, conveying the offer of the risen Lord to share with any who will open the door of fellowship in even the commonest activities of life. (New Bible Commentary 21st century edition) I hope that we all will seek the word of God to find the truth. Michael.
wow. great post. I was searching for stuff on this phrase as I’m currently trying to have it banned in perpetuity.
good thoughts, thanks.
Yes, you are right. Salvation is about recognizing Christ’s Lordship in your life and has nothing to do your personal comfort/fulfillment. But I am not sure the wording is the problem here. As Michael quoted Romans 10:9 – if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raise him from the dead, you will be saved;” Look up the Greek definition of the word ‘heart’ there. It is Strongs #2588.
the heart
that organ in the animal body which is the centre of the circulation of the blood, and hence was regarded as the seat of physical life
denotes the centre of all physical and spiritual life
the vigour and sense of physical life
the centre and seat of spiritual life
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
of the soul so far as it is affected and stirred in a bad way or good, or of the soul as the seat of the sensibilities, affections, emotions, desires, appetites, passions
of the middle or central or inmost part of anything, even though inanimate
Seems to me if you make Christ Lord of that part of my life, you are certainly recognizing his Lordship. But I certainly agree that Christ cannot be Lord without repentance.
Thank you Rob for giving us that. I agree , the heart determines action, and we must be careful to have the right attitudes of heart at all times. Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Michael
Confessing with your mouth and believing in you heart is only possible after the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. The trite churchisms have given generations a false security and resulted in a weak and watered down gospel