Inviting Jesus into your heart

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Now, the way I have been given to understand justification by faith was a free gift given by God through his grace.

But the way I hear some people talk about the “sinners’ prayer” it sounds like the easiest day of works salvation I’ve ever heard. That you the sinner invite Jesus into your heart and are then “saved” by this initiative action. This is certainly not the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, the Augsberg Confessions, or the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles and corresponding homily on the salvation of mankind. And doesn’t seem to me to be the doctrine of St Paul or S Augustine.

So where does it come from? Am I right in the way I have interpreted it? Is this a phenomenon only of the non-denominational denominations?
 
Indifferently said:
Now, the way I have been given to understand justification by faith was a free gift given by God through his grace.

But the way I hear some people talk about the “sinners’ prayer” it sounds like the easiest day of works salvation I’ve ever heard. That you the sinner invite Jesus into your heart and are then “saved” by this initiative action. This is certainly not the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, the Augsberg Confessions, or the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles and corresponding homily on the salvation of mankind. And doesn’t seem to me to be the doctrine of St Paul or S Augustine.

So where does it come from? Am I right in the way I have interpreted it? Is this a phenomenon only of the non-denominational denominations?
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It comes from reading the Scriptures outside of the lens of the Church which gave us these Scriptures.

All manner of innovative practices have developed over the years, once people divorced themselves from the idea that it is the Catholic Church which guides us into all Truth.
 
PRmerger said:
It comes from reading the Scriptures outside of the lens of the Church which gave us these Scriptures.

All manner of innovative practices have developed over the years, once people divorced themselves from the idea that it is the Catholic Church which guides us into all Truth.
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Please don’t derail this topic.
 
Indifferently said:
Please don’t derail this topic.
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At any rate, do you have a response?

The practice of inviting Jesus into one’s heart and thereby achieving one’s salvation is an innovation that is borne out of reading the Bible without the guidance of the guardian of Truth: the Catholic Church.
 
PRmerger said:
At any rate, do you have a response?

The practice of inviting Jesus into one’s heart and thereby achieving one’s salvation is an innovation that is borne out of reading the Bible without the guidance of the guardian of Truth: the Catholic Church.
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yawn

I agree with the literal grammatical sense of your post. It is the Church which interprets scripture.
 
I never understood that the Sinner’s Prayer makes you automatically saved. I always assumed repentance is the first step, not the last, and that inviting Jesus into your heart is the equivalent of contrition and desire to live a more virtuous life.

Who’s to judge whether that moment of repentance does or does not lead to salvation? God looks at the heart of people and alone judges and grants mercy according to His will.

Does repentance only count at the Sacrament of Reconciliation?
 
EIF5A said:
I never understood that the Sinner’s Prayer makes you automatically saved. I always assumed repentance is the first step, not the last, and that inviting Jesus into your heart is the equivalent of contrition and desire to live a more virtuous life.

Who’s to judge whether that moment of repentance does or does not lead to salvation? God looks at the heart of people and alone judges and grants mercy according to His will.

Does repentance only count at the Sacrament of Reconciliation?
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Repentance is continous, I would say.

The willingness to repent is the first step one takes…the recognition of a sin that wounds the self, Christ and the communion…that then leads to a desire to go to sacramental confession.
 
One friend (and that’s my limited experience) state once you invite Jesus into your heart
then you are saved once and always. That said, you can be “backslidden” if you sin too much and that means then that perhaps you were not sincere when you said the prayer.

Therefore it seemed the sincerity of inviting Jesus was dependent upon your later “works” or walk of Faith which is works righteousness it seems to me.
 
Indifferently said:
Now, the way I have been given to understand justification by faith was a free gift given by God through his grace.
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Correct.
Indifferently said:
But the way I hear some people talk about the “sinners’ prayer” it sounds like the easiest day of works salvation I’ve ever heard. That you the sinner invite Jesus into your heart and are then “saved” by this initiative action.
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This may be what some are taught. (I know there are some Southern Baptists who seem to believe this and the Southern Baptist Convention has been forced to issue correction about it, see AN AFFIRMATION OF A “SINNER’S PRAYER” AS A BIBLICAL EXPRESSION OF REPENTANCE AND FAITH (June 2012), and note this passage, “RESOLVED, That a “sinner’s prayer” is not an incantation that results in salvation merely by its recitation and should never be manipulatively employed or utilized apart from a clear articulation of the Gospel (Matthew 6:7; 15:7–9)”)

However, not everyone who speaks of “a sinner’s prayer” or “inviting Jesus into my heart” is speaking of works salvation, OSAS, or treating such prayer as an empty ritual or magic incantation.
Indifferently said:
So where does it come from?
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Not sure. If I had to take an educated guess, I’d say it didn’t start taking its current form until the 1800s, which is the same time the “altar call” began to emerge in a recognizable form.
Indifferently said:
Am I right in the way I have interpreted it?
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You are right that there is a possibility and a reality that people can fall into this belief, that the sinner’s prayer is “instantaneous salvation” and nothing else is required of us. However, that is certainly not what most people believe.

This type of prayer is a response to the grace of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. As we hear the gospel message and we learn who Jesus is and what he did for us, the power of God moves upon our lives in such a way that we are moved to Godly sorrow for our sins and drawn to prayer.

In prayer we confess to God that we are sinners and ask for forgiveness for our sins with the intention to truly repent from them. It will also be the first time that many express faith in Christ as God, Lord, and Savior, and ask that he would consecrate them, make his home in them, and make them his.

Such prayer is a response to the power of God already working within the person, convicting them of sin and moving them to repentance. This gift of faith rising up within the individual is vocalized and expressed in a moment of “crisis” that can be very significant for the individual and which many mark as the moment they became a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word.
Indifferently said:
Is this a phenomenon only of the non-denominational denominations?
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No. Many evangelical churches know this kind of experience well. Baptists, Pentecostals, maybe some Methodists who are more “evangelical” in orientation.
 
Indifferently said:
Now, the way I have been given to understand justification by faith was a free gift given by God through his grace.
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Or like we Catholics like to say:

We are saved by Grace through Faith Working in Love.
Indifferently said:
But the way I hear some people talk about the “sinners’ prayer” it sounds like the easiest day of works salvation I’ve ever heard. That you the sinner invite Jesus into your heart and are then “saved” by this initiative action. This is certainly not the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, the Augsberg Confessions, or the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles and corresponding homily on the salvation of mankind. And doesn’t seem to me to be the doctrine of St Paul or S Augustine.
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Easy believism.
Indifferently said:
So where does it come from? Am I right in the way I have interpreted it? Is this a phenomenon only of the non-denominational denominations?
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Oooooh dogggy… This might be a can of worms. Sounds like one of the many branches from Baptists, or Restorationists.

Are you right in the way you interpret it? Well… of course… There might be 20 different ways to interpret it and they are all correct. Who defines what it means for all who believe it?
 
To the once saved always saved, Scripture replies

“Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” [Galations 6:7-9]

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2 12-13

From Scripture supporting that good works as well as faith is required for our entry into heaven is the following.

"Take the case, my brothers of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of llife, then what good is that?: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
This is the way to talk to people of that kind:'You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds–now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.

You believe in one God–that is creditable enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear. Do realise, you senseless man, that faith without works is useless. You surely know that Abraham our Father was justified by his deed, because he offered Isaac on the altar? There you see it; faith and good deeds were working together; his faith became perfect by what he did. This is what scripture really means when it says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was counted as making him justified; and that is why he was called the friend of God. You see now that it is by doing something good, and not only by believing, that a man is justified." [James 2: 14-24]

Finally see Matthew 25 verses 31-46,
Jesus give as His criterion for judging souls, not “You had faith so you are saved” “You invited me into your heart so you were saved”, no, Jesus uses as His criteria for judging souls, whether or not they live out the practical acts of kindness He requires of us.

We are saved by faith and by good acts, thanks to the mercy of God.

“It is not those who call me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my father in heaven.” [Matthew 7:21]
 
Thanks Itwin. I suppose in such a way, it serves a similar function to the penitential prayers of confession found in the Book of Common Prayer.
 
Indifferently said:
Thanks Itwin. I suppose in such a way, it serves a similar function to the penitential prayers of confession found in the Book of Common Prayer.
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In some ways. However, the term “sinner’s prayer” is usually used to refer to the initial step toward God in faith. In that sense, it would be much more comparable to regenerative baptism. It is not uncommon for people to say that they were “born again” in that moment.

Evangelicals confess subsequent sin to God in private prayer throughout their lives. I would assume these would be similar to praying regular penitential prayers.

The main point I’d make is, however, that belief in a “sinner’s prayer” or “inviting Jesus into your heart” need not be a component of OSAS, work based salvation, or easy believism. It really does operate independently of any of those schemes.
 
When I was in my “church-shopping days” it most certainly was common for the “Sinner’s Prayer” (which, I have heard was composed in it’s present form by the Rev. Billy Graham), to be presented as a sort of magic incantation leading to salvation. You had to say the words exactly as the minister said them. I always thought that these people had no business talking about Catholic “rituals” when this was a ritual of the first degree, every Sunday without fail.

However, I do believe that one needs to have a loving and heart-to-heart relationship with our Creator, and it needs to be on a conscious level with a conscious turning away from sin and repentance. However, one is not actually “saved” until one’s death. There is always the possibility that one can choose, of his own free will, to turn away from God and be lost. What we ARE is CONVERTED, which is a continual process, a continual turning away from sin and turning toward God. OSAS takes the free will of man to turn away from God out of the equation.

However, God is merciful and just, and our salvation comes from HIM, it is a free gift, and He can save anyone He chooses. He knows His sheep. He knows the hearts of His children. He is not subject to what we sometimes want to impose on Him. He is Sovereign Lord of the whole thing. We do not know all of His ways. Thus, we cannot ever judge one another in this matter, even if it seems obvious to our puny intellects. This is not to say that doctrine and truth are not important–they are. However, we don’t understand all of God’s ways, and should not presume to. There is much we cannot and do not understand.
 
CB_Catholic said:
When I was in my “church-shopping days” it most certainly was common for the “Sinner’s Prayer” (which, I have heard was composed in it’s present form by the Rev. Billy Graham), to be presented as a sort of magic incantation leading to salvation. You had to say the words exactly as the minister said them. I always thought that these people had no business talking about Catholic “rituals” when this was a ritual of the first degree, every Sunday without fail.

However, I do believe that one needs to have a loving and heart-to-heart relationship with our Creator, and it needs to be on a conscious level with a conscious turning away from sin and repentance. However, one is not actually “saved” until one’s death. There is always the possibility that one can choose, of his own free will, to turn away from God and be lost. What we ARE is CONVERTED, which is a continual process, a continual turning away from sin and turning toward God. OSAS takes the free will of man to turn away from God out of the equation.

However, God is merciful and just, and our salvation comes from HIM, it is a free gift, and He can save anyone He chooses. He knows His sheep. He knows the hearts of His children. He is not subject to what we sometimes want to impose on Him. He is Sovereign Lord of the whole thing. We do not know all of His ways. Thus, we cannot ever judge one another in this matter, even if it seems obvious to our puny intellects. This is not to say that doctrine and truth are not important–they are. However, we don’t understand all of God’s ways, and should not presume to. There is much we cannot and do not understand.
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You seem to be conflating justification and sanctification.
 
CB_Catholic said:
the “Sinner’s Prayer” (which, I have heard was composed in it’s present form by the Rev. Billy Graham)
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No. There is no one “sinner’s prayer.” It is a general term for any initiatory expression of faith in and confession to God. It is common for the one praying with the new convert to lead him in this prayer, but there is no “script.” The one leading the new convert in prayer will often come up with a prayer on the spot that contains the following elements:

Affirmation that Jesus died for our sins and rose again,
Confession of sin and asking for forgiveness,
Commitment to turn from sin,
Asking God for full consecration and total surrender of one’s life.

It is usually emphasized that the prayer must proceed out of sincere faith and actual repentance must follow for any true conversion to have occurred.
 
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