Pastor Dennis Rokser was curious one day, so he asked his congregation how many of them had "asked Jesus into their hearts." To his surprise, around 60% of them had done this at some point in their life (although he had never taught it). Then he asked how many of them had gained assurance of their salvation at a later date. The vast majority raised their hands again. After reading of his experiences, I decided to ask around to see if I would get the same results, and sure enough, I did.
This past summer I was a counselor at a bible camp, and as I reflect back, I can remember several times when a kid would respond to an invitation to "ask Jesus into your heart." Our camp kept track of any decisions the kids made, so I knew if it was a camper's first time or not. Often, kids who had prayed for "salvation" and had dedicated their lives to Christ several times would come forward and want to do it again. I would check the decision sheet, and see that it was their 3rd or 4th time coming forward, and so the conversation usually went like this:
Me: So why did you come to me?
Camper: I want to ask Jesus into my heart.
Me: Well, you know the Bible says that if you believe in what Jesus Christ did for you, then you are already saved. Have you ever prayed before?
Camper: Yeah.
Me: What did you pray for?
Camper: I asked Jesus into my heart.
Me: So why do you want to pray again?
Camper: I'm scared... I'm not sure if it worked.
That explains it all! The reason the camper didn't have assurance is because the camper didn't have salvation. His expressed fears revealed where his faith rested. The camper wasn't sure if "
it" worked; and
it didn't. The camper had good reason to be worried, because he was trusting in his prayer to save him. When he said "I'm not sure if it worked", you can be assured that he wasn't talking about the sacrifice of Jesus. Lets look at some biblical reasons why you shouldn't "ask Jesus into your heart."
1) "Asking Jesus into your heart" confuses the issues. Many people hold that this cliché is helpful in explaining salvation to young children. Pastor Rokser points out, however, that children often take things very literally, and have difficulty with abstract ideas. He wrote, "[Children] understand 'ball', 'dog', and 'hat' before they understand 'death', 'hell', and 'salvation'. When confronted with an appeal to ask Jesus into their heart, they are prone to imagine Christ in bodily form somehow living in the organ that pumps our blood." He shares a story of a young girl who leaned against her mother's chest and said:
Girl: Mom, I hear Jesus in your heart.
Mom: Really, honey. What is Jesus doing?
Girl: Oh, He's just perking coffee.
On top of the confusion that it causes children, I challenge any adult to sit down and analyze exactly what the cliché is saying. Every adult that I have asked to explain what the term means ends up saying something like "It means that you believe that Jesus died for you." Hold on! That is in NO way the same thing. One says "Jesus died for our sins," and the other says "Ask Jesus into your heart." That's the same thing? Todd Friel points out the confusion well:
"Asking Jesus into your heart" is a saying that makes no sense. What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will he somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does he reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it."
2) Telling people they need to "ask Jesus into their heart" changes the biblical center of faith. Justification comes through faith in what Christ has done for you. Faith placed in ANYTHING else, no matter how "christianeese" it sounds will not save you. I remember pleading with God as a child that he would come into my heart. I remember being told that unless He's in your heart, then you cannot go to heaven. Consequently, I asked Him into my heart over and over again. I really, really, really wanted Him to come into my heart. Eventually, I comforted myself with the idea that I had asked so many times that one of the times I must have meant it enough. People had given me a false assurance by telling me that if I just said the prayer, and really meant it, then I would go to heaven; and so I said the prayer; and I really did mean it! I really did want to go to heaven, but I had never placed my faith in Jesus Christ.
Here is another way to explain it. You stand guilty before a judge, and a $500,000 fine hangs over your head. You have no money. The judge says to you, "I am about to pass sentence, you either pay the fine, or I have to send you away to jail. Do you have any last words?" You could tell the judge, "Yeah! Judge, I asked you into my heart!" The judge would laugh at you. You "asking the judge" into your heart would be meaningless. So in the same way, asking Jesus into your heart is NOT grounds for justification. You would still stand guilty before God. Imagine though, you say to the Judge, "I have a very good friend, and he is willing to pay my fine for me." Your friend steps in and pays the $500,000 fine. Then justice has been served, the law is fulfilled, and you are free to go. So it is with Jesus, the only way we can be made just in his sight is not to ask the judge into our heart, but to trust that Jesus' blood was the check written out to pay our penalty of sin and death.
3) "Asking Jesus into your heart" confuses the means of salvation with the ends of salvation. Any true born-again believer does possess the indwelling of Jesus. So Jesus entering the hearts of believers is a legitimate result of salvation, but no one had EVER received this indwelling through "asking Jesus into their heart." Why not? Well, because there can be no indwelling outside of what is prescribed in scripture, and scripture clearly says that it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. More specifically, it comes through faith in the fact that Jesus Christ has paid for your sins with HIS blood. Anything outside of faith placed in this
exact fact cannot result in "Jesus coming into your heart," because it isn't what God has said one must do!
Lets look at Galatians 4:6. It says "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into our hearts." In this verse, the means and the ends of salvation are very clear. God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into our hearts (end of salvation)
because you are sons. So the indwelling is the direct
result of becoming a son of God. You have to become a son first! How do we become sons of God? "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God,
to those who believe in his name" (John 1:12). "But these are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
believing you might have life through his name" (John 20:31). "For by grace you have been saved through
faith..." (Eph 2:8). Trusting in Jesus Christ is the means of salvation, and it results in the end of salvation, the indwelling of Jesus in our hearts.
4) Telling people, "You have to ask Jesus into your heart in order to go to heaven" condemns real Christians. I can't remember the number of times that I have heard someone say "In order to be saved, you need to ask Jesus into your heart." If what these people were saying is true, then what happens to all those people who have simply obeyed the Gospel and put their trust in the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins? If they simply believed, but didn't "say the prayer", are they all headed for Hell? What happened to all those people in Acts who came to repentance, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and then were baptized in His name, but no mention of prayer was made?
5) It hinders the preaching of the Gospel. Last spring break I went on a mission trip to Panama City, FL. The gospel being preached there was one that boiled down to "Are you seeking spiritual things? Do you know what would happen to you if you died tonight? Would you like to know for sure? If you just accept Jesus as your savior/Ask Jesus into your heart/Accept a relationship with Jesus, then when you die you will go to heaven." It was cliché central, and consequently all but two people that I talked to claimed to be a Christian. They had MTV parties, spinning big wheels that said "Guy, Girl, Guy, Girl" and another wheel that said "Strip, Kiss, Lick [various body parts]..." They would spin the wheels, and the people in the crowd had to do whatever the wheels said. It was nothing less than a pagan orgy, and everyone there I witnessed to was already a "Christian!" I even stopped a couple who was undressing to have sex on the beach and asked them if it concerned them that the Bible said that all those who are sexually immoral would have their part in the lake of fire. The young man replied, "Not really, my dad is a pastor. I know all this stuff," and with a big smile and confidence he said "I've asked Jesus into my heart!"
Using these clichés often results in giving people false assurance, and actually hinders the gospel. Small pox was defeated by taking its cousin, cow pox, and infecting people. Cow pox was very similar to small pox, but it was much less potent. A person who got cow pox would recover from their infection quickly, and their body would become immune to the potent small pox. The church today is guilty of infecting people with an impotent gospel, and now when I try to preach the real Gospel, people are inoculated to it.
6) The Bible never teaches that we should "Ask Jesus into our hearts." This comes as a surprise to most people. It may be shocking, and it is definitely true. Never once will you see in scripture someone being led to ask Jesus into his/her heart. In fact, you cannot find one instance where a person is petitioned to even say a prayer to be saved. The whole concept of such a sinner's prayer is extra-biblical.
Many people would argue that Rev 3:20 is the supporting text for "asking Jesus into your heart." I have seen many tracts, including Billy Graham's "Steps to Peace with God" tracts that say Jesus is knocking at the door to your heart, then quote Revelation 3:20. Lets look at what this verse says: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me."
The verse says "I stand at the door." What door is Jesus standing at? Is it the door of my car? Is it my refrigerator door? Is it my garage door? To affirm that the verse says "I stand at the door [of your heart] and knock," is to read something into the verse that isn't there. We have just as much right to read it "I stand at the door [of your bedroom] and knock." The only way we can tell is to look at the verse in context.
This verse is written to the church at Laodicea. This church thought that they were doing great, when they were truly wretched and sick. They had lost fellowship with their Savior. This verse is not written to an individual, but to the whole church. This is the invitation, that if they repent of their condition (as described in the previous verses) then fellowship would be restored to the church. Jesus is knocking at the door of the whole church.
Moving on in the verse, many people get confused when Jesus says "I will come in to him." They point to this as proof that we are to ask Jesus to come in. The verse, however, does not say "I will come into him," but "in to him." Again, the door Jesus is standing at is the door to the church, and so the verse reads "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door," (and this is the door of the whole church) then, "I will come in," (He will enter into fellowship); and where will Jesus go? "To him." To the person who opened the door to receive fellowship.
7) Don't tell people "You need to ask Jesus into your heart," because absolutely no one, at any time, has ever been saved by asking Jesus into their heart! Pastor Rokser wrote "Dear friends, I am convinced that NO ONE has ever been saved or received the assurance of their salvation by asking Jesus into his/her heart." The first time I read this I thought, "Ok, maybe that's taking it a little too far. No one?" But as I looked at the evidence, I too became convinced. He goes on to explain why, "Because there can be no salvation, nor assurance of salvation by something that is foreign to scripture." That's it! If the bible doesn't teach one can be saved by doing it, then one cannot be saved by doing it.
The only remedy for our sin that is ever presented in the Bible is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He did... "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish..." (John 3:16)
Assurance of salvation is received though the exact same thing! 1 John 5:11-13 says: "And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God; that you man know that you have eternal life, and that you may
believe on the name of the Son of God."
Now this does not mean that every person who has asked Jesus into their hearts is not saved. There are probably countless people who have been saved when they asked Jesus into their hearts, despite them using the confusing cliché. The reason they were saved, however, was not because they "asked Jesus into their heart," but because they believed on Jesus Christ, and his blood for the forgiveness of sin...
Closing Thoughts...
I couldn't have summarized a final appeal better than Pastor Rokser did:
Dear reader, do not let your pride ("I've taught that cliché in the past") or your emotion ("I've prayed this with my kids") or your traditions ("Our church has always said that") get in the way of truth and biblical accuracy on the most important issue that anyone must address. While this misleading cliché is a sacred cow in evangelicalism today, let us return to the authoritative Word of God to embrace what God himself says about our eternal salvation...
What must I do to be saved?
BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED (Acts 16:31)
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(This article was written by Jon Harms, and was slightly edited for publication on this blog by me, James Rondon.)
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many will soon be gathered at their respective family tables for a time of feasting and fellowship. During these gatherings, even those who are outside of Christ will find themselves drawn into prayer and thanksgiving to God, if for no other reason than to keep with tradition.
