It's quite perplexing that the Bible never mentions the term asking Jesus into your heart. It never says accept Christ. Walk down the aisle. Raise your hand. Sign the card. Talk to the pastor/elder. It doesn't say ANY of those things as a recipe for being saved. In Mark 1:15, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Now, because we (society and me) are task-oriented people, we take these two items and turn them into checklist-items.
- repent
- believe
Paul Washer describes it like this: "You were saved because you repented of your sins and you believed, and not only did you do that in the past, you continued to do it even until now . . . . A proper translation of that verse He gave is this: The Kingdom of God is come. The time is fulfilled. Now, spend the rest of your lives repenting of your sins and believing in Me. Conversion is not like a flu shot. "Oh, I did that. I repented. I believed." The question is my friend––are you continuing to repent of sin? Are you continuing to believe? Because He who began a good work in you will finish it. He will finish it." (Here's the rest of the sermon.)
At the end of this quote, Washer refers to God beginning a good work in us (Philippians 1:6), which brings up another crucial point. Our wise and sovereign Creator is the One who turns us to repentance and belief. This is what transforming grace is all about. When we deserve hell, He chose us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Ephesians 1:5). For many years, I believed that I was saved because I had asked Jesus into my heart and life. Wrong. I am saved because God loved me and God called me to repentance and believing in Him. Wow, that is humbling. (Charles Spurgeon talks more about election here, a really good sermon.)
THEREFORE, we Christians, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), go on a lifelong journey of being progressively sanctified with the help of the Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 say, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." Does that mean I will never again mess up? No. But I will spend the rest of my life repenting and believing Him. 2 Corinthians 13:5 warns us to examine ourselves. We are to test ourselves in the light of Scripture to see if we’re in the path, because a true Christian will be different.
Yeah! I think this is a really important point. I think in our simplistic, immature thinking we assume one action will save us, but as we get more mature, we realize how desperately we need the cross every day, even every minute. I will never stop repenting, because I need total rejuvenation, and that doesn't happen in a moment, except when I die. Uh, I will stop here, because this isn't my blog post. But I think this is a really interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteAnd. . . we realize more and more how desperately we depend on God to save us, how little it is about us.
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