THE SINNERS' PRAYER DOESN'T SAVE YOU

Hey man! What do you mean? This is what most people have known their entire lives and they will fight (at worst) to defend this point. Salvation does not come by praying in some creed. Imagine if being saved came by reciting the apostles' creed. Doesn't match up, right? It's the same thing here, salvation does not happen because you repeated a prayer after some pastor in your church.

In the church I used to be at, it was a normalcy. Every Sunday, there was an altar call. A call to save people from their sins by reciting the sinners' prayer, and after this is done, the preacher declares you saved. Interesting, because I thought only God could declare us saved.

This is basically it:

"Say with me" the preacher leading the congregation will say, "Lord Jesus" and the audience who responded to his altar call will repeat after him, "Lord Jesus." Then he will continue, "I invite you into my heart... Satan, I am no longer yours, I belong to God..."

This is all nice and sweet but this is not it. The prosperity preacher after talking about prosperity by misinterpreting scriptures and taking them out of context shall then conclude, "you cannot take part of this blessing if you are not born again." What does he mean by that? He means you cannot have worldly stuff when you are not saved. And then he invites the congregation to pray the sinners' prayer.

O how wrong this is. If you want to be saved repeat this prayer after me. One may ask, what if I do not have the words to pray I will need someone's words to ride on. No, you don't. You need to know God. Know what the scripture says about you and then ask the Lord into your heart. When you repeat after the preacher, do you feel like a sinner? Or has it become some formality to be welcomed into a cult?

This is not Islam where you recite the Shahadah to be converted. 

Transliteration: "Ashadu an la ilaha illa illa-ilah, wa ashadu anna muhammadan rasul ullah."

Translation: "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah."

No! This is not it. This is not what Christianity is. It has never been this way. Recite to be accepted. Recite to be saved, no! It is knowing inwardly after hearing the gospel that you are a sinner and nothing good can come from you. It is knowing that only God can draw anyone at all to the Son. It is knowing that you cannot be saved by doing good, or by doing anything at all. We are at the mercy of a good Lord.

How then can one be saved, now that we know that the sinners' prayer is not it? Of course, the sinner is the one who is going to pray, and every prayer prayed by man can be categorized as a sinners' prayer including the one which is not the "sinner's prayer."

I'm not sure there are steps to this. 5 steps to acquire salvation. No, it is not yours to take, it is God's gift. 

John 6:44 - No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him (the sinner). Nobody can go to the Father.

If you cannot first acknowledge that you are a sinner and that only God can save you, then, salvation is far from your door. remember the incident on the hill of Golgotha where Jesus was nailed in between two thieves. He who knew no sin was crucified with sinners. One thief said to Him, "if you are the Messiah, save yourself and us." The other thief, what did he say? "Indeed, we are suffering justly, we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man had done nothing wrong... Jesus, remember me when You come in Your Kingdom."

You see how the second thief responded to his fellow. He saw himself as nothing more but a sinner who was being justly condemned but on the day of his death, he found redemption in Christ alone, grace alone and not by his works (for all of his works were filthy and deserved death). [Eph. 2:8]

There is more to say about this subject. I'll just leave it here and share more in the future. We are saved by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone unto good works for God's glory alone. 

Come to yourself, see yourself just as you are, and implore God to save you. Even with tears of penitence. Cry your heart out to him. IF you must shout: "Pass me not O gentle saviour, hear my humble cry... Do not pass me by!" Pray, He looks upon you with pity and that your imploring may not be in vain, and detest your sins. Oh, how sweet it is to bask in the love of Jesus.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted - Psalm 34:18

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