Should people ask Jesus Christ into their lives or not?

[AverageJoe]

A recent article posted in the "Southern Baptists" forums of Facebook suggests that people shouldn't ask Jesus Christ into their lives. I believe this article is written from a strictly Calvinist POV, and I can't say that I agree with many of their conclusions. I'm not saying all Calvinists believe this way. What do YOU think? This isn't something that is found in just the Southern Baptists, but in the IFB as well.

“Ten reasons NOT to ask Jesus into your heart” by Todd Friel.

Ten reasons NOT to ask Jesus into your heart. By Todd Friel 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 i…

truthingrace.com

 

[ALAYMAN]

To tell you the truth, after I read this codswallop...

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.” (II Cor.5) No backsliding there.

... I couldn't take the rest of the article seriously. Then of course the author of its handle was taken from Wretched Radios host Todd Friel and that is strike two. Some of the rest of his actual bulleted points were fair criticism(s) of a shallow form of evangelism.

An anecdotal story of agreement on the 1-2-3 style of prayer (which is the seedy underbelly of much of his points)...

Several years ago a church member asked me to go with them to an elderly acquaintance's home to speak with them about the Lord because the individual was given a terminal health prognosis of some sort. After talking with them for a bit about their spiritual matters it was very clear that the person had never walked with the Lord, had no affinity for reading the Bible, never went to church, shown no discernible fruit of the Spirit, but they were sure they were on their way to heaven and a Christian because they had prayed a prayer when they were a small child in some youth program and promotion. For their sakes, I hope that they were right, but from many legitimate passages of scriptures that speaks of a changed life (via repentance) as being an indicator of true faith in Christ, I think that they represent some of what is accurate about the article you linked to. And I think your inclinations about some of their biases which appear to be tied to Calvinism is spot on, Strike three!

 

[Ransom]

I agree that "ask Jesus into your heart" is trite and that the accompanying forms of evangelism are frequently emotional and superficial rather than biblical and convicting.

However, the article appears overly deterministic, implying that the hindrance of evangelism, ridicule of Christ, a false sense of security, and backsliding are the inevitable results of saying the wrong magic words.

That's silly. The evidence of one's salvation is not the prayer they prayed at the altar call. It's the growth in righteousness and knowledge of the truth as the believer is transformed by the Holy Spirit. I think it's important to do evangelism biblically, but if someone answers an altar call and prays The Prayer<tm>, that's not evidence that they're going to be shallow Christians.

 

[AverageJoe]

I agree that "ask Jesus into your heart" is trite and that the accompanying forms of evangelism are frequently emotional and superficial rather than biblical and convicting.

However, the article appears overly deterministic, implying that the hindrance of evangelism, ridicule of Christ, a false sense of security, and backsliding are the inevitable results of saying the wrong magic words.

That's silly. The evidence of one's salvation is not the prayer they prayed at the altar call. It's the growth in righteousness and knowledge of the truth as the believer is transformed by the Holy Spirit. I think it's important to do evangelism biblically, but if someone answers an altar call and prays The Prayer<tm>, that's not evidence that they're going to be shallow Christians.

Yes, I thought the article was quite one-sided in its views....I'm against "easy-believism", as I've seen a lot of it, having been in the IFB circles for many years, and even having used it myself as a "tool". I find that many of the converts (not all) using this method end up being unsaved, unsure, or just plain wanting to use Christ as a fire escape from Hell with no true intention of ever following the Bible.

 

[abcaines]

Whenever this question comes up, my mind goes back to when I was a child in Sunday school and they were showing a picture of Jesus knocking on the door of my heart while singing, "Will you let Him in?" That was confusing to me: I actually looked down inside my shirt wondering if that was what I looked like on the inside. I totally missed the allegory. Now, I'm not going to say others in the room didn't miss it because as I've shared, the whole concept of Christ's death on the cross and our need to accept, invite Him in, believe, come into a personal relationship, whatever you want to call it, made no sense to me until the Holy Spirit "flipped the switch" and the light came on. BTW I use " flipped the switch" because that is how sudden my realization of the concept was. In that instant, ten years of hearing the gospel presented in a myriad of ways became clear and I knew I needed to be saved. My "prayer" was a personal conversation with the Lord along the lines of, "I get it now, of course I accept You..." That is the moment I point to as the time at which I passed from death unto life. However, my conversion wasn't as simple as that. Again, my testimony does not revolve around that moment in time as it used to; my testimony is how God's sovereign Hand was guiding me from my earliest memories to this day where He is still working on me to fashion me into what He wants me to be.

How should the gospel be presented to the lost? Within biblical constructs, I don't believe it matters. We just use whatever illustrations we have at our disposal, imperfect as they are because, ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit who will draw the person into the Kingdom.