Joel Osteen concludes each sermon with a prayer: “Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. Come into my heart. I make you my Lord and Savior.” Then Joel looks at the camera and says, “If you prayed that simple prayer, we believe ya’ got born again. Get in a good, Bible-based church…”
That always seems abrupt to me. The biggest moment of your life—bigger than graduation, marriage, or buying a house, yet it’s three sentences tacked on at the end of a feel-good talk about making lemonade out of life’s lemons.
Could that do it? Are 18 words enough to secure your spot in heaven?
Yes.
The Bible does not tell us what words to use when leading the lost to Christ. And that is for the best. If God gave us a word-for-word prayer, a set of words with magical power, the thing would be more like a witch’s spell than a real prayer. God is not looking at your words, but your HEART. It is your HEART that must REPENT. It is your HEART that must be BORN AGAIN.
But although we have no magical formula, in one of His parables, Jesus gives us a powerful example of a “Sinner’s Prayer”:
“‘Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I pay tithes of all I receive.’
But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘GOD, BE MERCIFUL TO ME, A SINNER!’
I tell you, this man went to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted” Luke 18:9-14.
Salvation comes to those who beg for mercy because they know they’ve sinned. It will not always include the same emotions, but the heart must always be humble before a holy God.
Read Luke 18.
ΑΩ
Dad's Daily Devotional 