acceptance or surrender?

"Say this simple prayer. Dear Jesus, I admit that I am a sinner. I believe that you died for my sins and I accept you as my savior, I invite you into my heart and I receive your gift of eternal life. Amen." That is the "sinners prayer" in a nut shell. I would suggest that most of us were "saved" after saying this prayer. We rest our hope in this one time decision and one prayer that we said. Perhaps the pastor that was preaching that day was talking about hell and the torment and begged anyone who is not sure of their salvation to come forward, walk the aisle and say this simple prayer and be saved.

Now let me preface this entire blog post by saying that my intent is not to bash the sinners prayer nor do I think that it is wrong. Let me also say that many people who are genuinely saved have said the sinners prayer (I am one). However, what I firmly do believe (as I have seen it time and time again with friends that I grew up with at church) is that this sinners prayer and walking down the aisle has led to many false conversions. The scary thing of it all is, those false converts truly believe that they are still saved even though they have no spiritual fruit which is the only true measure of a Christian (Matthew 7:20). They were taught to not doubt their own salvation even though the Bible clearly teaches that we should "examine (ourselves), to see whether (we) are in the faith. Test (ourselves)" (2 Corinthians 13:5) or to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). I fear how many of my friends that grew up in church with me will be the ones at the judgement seat saying "Lord, didn't we go to church and worship you and read our Bibles" and He will look them in the eyes and say "Depart from me, I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23). 

I think that there are a couple of issues that need to be addressed in our evangelism and discipleship. First of all, I believe that when we share Christ with someone, we need to share with them the cost of following Christ. We are so quick to share verses like John 3:16 "God so loved the world" or Romans 6:23 "The free gift of God is eternal life" or Romans 10:9 "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." However, just as quickly, we skip over verses like Luke 14:26-27 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple" or Luke 9 when 3 men come to Jesus saying that they will follow Jesus wherever he goes but Jesus tells them that in order to follow Him, they are guaranteed no basic shelter, they need to abandon their family and place Christ above them and abandon their old life and follow wholly after Christ and we can make the assumption that they decide not to follow Him after this. 2 Timothy 3:12 says that "all who desire to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted."

Second of all, when people make a decision to follow Christ, we need to disciple them. We are good at the "making disciples" if we equate "making disciples" with "making Christians" and we are good at "baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" but we neglect that "teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded." (Matthew 28:19-20). When we lead someone to Christ or the reality is, when God graciously and mercifully calls someone to Himself and uses us to be His instrument to proclaim His gospel, we need to immediately begin discipling them.

The sad reality is that with easy-believism and the health and wealth gospel, so many people are being led to believe that they just need to say this simple prayer and they will spend eternity in heaven and not only that, they will be blessed with good health and material goods from a God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Sadly we have replaced surrender and dying to self with accept and have your best life now. What the world needs is less casual follows and more lifelong disciples and slaves to Christ who are willing to embrace the cost of being a disciple of Christ for the sake of His name and His glory.