Jesus as personal Lord and savior

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I have been told I must accept “Jesus as personal Lord and Savior”. But I have also read that that concept is not in The Bible. Now my friend has said that whereas those exact words may noy appear in The Bible there are many places where the concept is spelled out. I need some help. Is it in The Bible or isn’t it? When did “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and savior” become the mark of “being a Christian” or has it always been a requirement?
 
I’m guessing your friend is an Evangelical :D. This phrase comes from interpretations of different passages in the Bible, so in essence, you are correct that it does not appear in the Bible. It comes from the necessity of accepting Christ’s sacrifice as the atoning bridge between God and humans. So Christ is the Savior of our souls. the personal Lord concept is that Christ becomes Lord of your life. The demons knew who Jesus was, but He did not govern their actions and how they behaved. The commanments and example of Christ should govern the lives of Christians. So we have made Jesus Lord of our person. Along with this we believe we can know God and Jesus on an intimate level, as close friends. We take all our cares, concerns, problems, joys, praises, successes and failures to God through prayer. As relationships between confidants grow stronger as trust grows, so does the relationship between believer and God. Hope this helps.
 
This is what most protestant churches believe, that salvation is gained through accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. Having come from a protestant background, I look to this idea as the protestant attempt to gain the inward change and graces Catholics receive through the sacraments.

The intentions of accepting Jesus of your Lord and Saviour is to draw closer to God. The intentions are good, and it is to help a person lead a life please to God. My best analogy I can give is that both Protestants and Catholics are following a path to Heaven and to draw closer to God. But as in life there are some paths that are better, easier to travel and get you to your destination quicker so to can the Protestant belief of accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and the Sacraments be compared to these paths. Both hopefully get you to your destination of Heaven to live with God in all his Glory, but where only accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour falls short, or perhaps leads you down a less desirable path, the Sacraments lead you down the better path, a path where you more closely walk with God as your take your Journey in this life to finish in Heaven.
 
You receive sanctifying grace in you first during baptism. That’s when original sin gets washed away. This is when you first receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior.You reaffirm this every time you receive the sacraments. It’s kind of like a Protestant attempt to get the same/just as much grace as Catholics receive from the sacraments. The mark of being a Christian has ALWAYS been when you are baptised in the name of the Trinity. Now this concept is in the Bible, but not as most Evangelicals present it (or so it seems to me). It usually goes right along with OSAS, which is completely false. Either way, it isn’t Catholic terminology, so just stick to terms you know as a Roman Catholic.
 
Nowhere in the Bible is “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” mentioned… This is the Protestant notion of the way to be “born again.” The New Testament tells us that we are “born again” through Baptism. Every baptized Christian has been born again.

Catholics “accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior” every time we receive Him in Holy Communion – every day or every Sunday.

Jim Dandy
Ex-Southern Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist, ecstatic to be Catholic!
 
In the Baptist church I grew up in, accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior for the most part meant you asked for forgiveness for your sins, believed that Jesus died for you, wanted to live your life to please Jesus, read your Bible and prayed. They had many verses that, put together, pretty much said these things.

When I first met my Catholic mother-in-law , I’m sure if I had asked her if she had ever accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior she wouldn’t have understood what I was really saying, HOWEVER, she loved Jesus, went regularly to mass and confession, believed Jesus died for her, tried to live her life the way Jesus taught, read her Bible and prayed all the time (she literally had callouses on her knees from kneeling so much). The first time I attended a mass with her and she said The Creed, I could tell by her voice that she believed every word. I don’t know how much more “personal” a Lord and Savior could have been to her!! 👍
 
The_Wizard said:
When did “accepting Jesus as -]personal/-] Lord and savior” become the mark of “being a Christian” or has it always been a requirement?
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Minus the “personal” bit, because Christ died to open the gates of sanctifying grace for the whole of humanity, this has always been a requirement.

However, this requirement is not met in some little “altar call” that you’ll find in many churches today (talk about violating sola scriptura!) but is found in baptism and our baptismal vows!
 
The_Wizard said:
I have been told I must accept “Jesus as personal Lord and Savior”. But I have also read that that concept is not in The Bible. Now my friend has said that whereas those exact words may noy appear in The Bible there are many places where the concept is spelled out. I need some help. Is it in The Bible or isn’t it? When did “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and savior” become the mark of “being a Christian” or has it always been a requirement?
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As with most of these things there is a lot of variation that needs to be looked at. Most has been mentioned in the previous posts.

Christ, by His cross and resurrection has poured out grace upon the world. Not all accept Him or God’s grace. So there needs to be an “accepting” on our part in order to be truly saved.
I think that the whole “personal Lord and Savior” issue is where a lot of the difficulty comes in. My suspicion is that the term is something that developed and is used to emphasize the very personal nature of conversion. To point to an individual and say to them that this is not just an intellectual exercise but something that is deeply personal and tremendously important.
Actually I would suggest that a more accurate statement would be that we must “personally accept Jesus as Lord and Savior” rather than our “personal Lord and Savior” which sounds a bit like calling a servant ( such as - my personal assistant).

In the end, no matter the term used to evangelize, we must accept and submit to Christ as our King and Lord.

Peace
James
 
The_Wizard said:
I have been told I must accept “Jesus as personal Lord and Savior”. But I have also read that that concept is not in The Bible. Now my friend has said that whereas those exact words may noy appear in The Bible there are many places where the concept is spelled out. I need some help. Is it in The Bible or isn’t it?
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First of all, I think that your friend makes this claim then he should be the one to also provide the book, chapter and verse to back it up (rather than simply tell you that it is found “in many places” in the Bible and leave it at that).

Moving on…

It has been my observation that when Evangelicals elaborate on the concept of accepting Jesus as ones personal Lord and Savior, the following Bible verses are mentioned:

“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:9)

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)

From Romans 10:9 we can see the reference to Jesus as “Lord,” and if he saves us then he is the “Savior.” In Galatians, Paul expresses the actions of Jesus in a personal way: “…who loved me and gave himself for me.”
When did “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and savior” become the mark of “being a Christian” or has it always been a requirement?
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That’s a good question. Even though the terminology can be, more or less, drawn from the NT, the phrase “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” is so standardized that it seems like someone must have coined this phrase at some point, and it caught on and spread. Awhile ago my brother attempted a thread to discover who coined the term, but nothing was determined.
 
The_Wizard said:
I have been told I must accept “Jesus as personal Lord and Savior”. But I have also read that that concept is not in The Bible. Now my friend has said that whereas those exact words may noy appear in The Bible there are many places where the concept is spelled out. I need some help. Is it in The Bible or isn’t it? When did “accepting Jesus as personal Lord and savior” become the mark of “being a Christian” or has it always been a requirement?
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A person does need to accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. That phrase is not in the Bible specifically spelled out in that exact manner, but it’s Biblical in a common sense kind of way.

The problem is that this correct phrase has inadvertently been reduced to something of a slogan by some evangelicals. They also delve into a kind of routine once they get you interested in “accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” If your church doesn’t spend a lot of time preaching on the specific notion of “accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior” with those precise words, then you can end up thinking you’re missing out on something because of the new sounding phrase. That puts them in a position of being kind of a teacher to you, and as a student you’re supposed to be doing what they tell you…which often leads into the “sinners prayer” something which isn’t really necessary. Evangelicals often use the phrase “born again” in the same way as this “accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior” phrase. It’s become kind of a recruiting schtick for them.

You might let your friend know that as a Catholic, you’ve already accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and then suggest a prayer of thanks to God for placing you in a Church which has helped lead so many people in that direction for so much of human history.

His reaction might be interesting…😉
 
Nothing is more PERSONAL than Jesus’ Body and Blood.

Protestants who do not believe in Jesus’ Body and Blood after He tells them that it is TRUE food and TRUE drink are according to His words–Anti-Christ!

Why would Jesus save some one who didn’t believe Him?

Is there any life in them when they don’t believe Him?

Jesus says that those who do not drink His Blood and eat His body do not have life in them.

Does Jesus speak the truth?
 
From my conversations with Protestants, when they say they have a personal relationship with God they are also saying there is no real need for a formal church. They don’t see the Catholic Church as helping Catholics have a close relationship with God, rather they see the Catholic Church as something inbetween and blocking Catholics from God. It is so hard for them to understand when I tell him the Holy Eucharist is the most personal relationship one can have with God in this life.

Ran
 
Nothing wrong with personalizing your relationship with Jesus or God:
The Blessed Virgin Mary said, “…and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” (Luke 1:47)
St. Thomas said of Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28)
St. Paul said, “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:8)
 
I think Ranp is on the right track. When did people start to think “the church” were individuals? I know Luther and Calvin both felt “the church” was more than an individual and it had to be more than “me, Jesus and a tree”.
 
Ranp said:
From my conversations with Protestants, when they say they have a personal relationship with God they are also saying there is no real need for a formal church. They don’t see the Catholic Church as helping Catholics have a close relationship with God, rather they see the Catholic Church as something inbetween and blocking Catholics from God. It is so hard for them to understand when I tell him the Holy Eucharist is the most personal relationship one can have with God in this life.

Ran
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Right on, Ran!

My problem with the notion of “accepting Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior” is the belief that thereby one is “born again.” IOW, it’s a one-time deal. A Catholic accepts Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior every time he receives Holy Communion, or goes to Confession, or receives the Anointing of the Sick. It is ongoing – until we die.

Many Protestants say “I got saved,” or “I am saved,” or “Have you been saved?” Many, but not all of them, think salvation is an instantaneous affair, but the Bible doesn’t teach instant salvation. A Catholic would say something like: “I have been saved” (Rom 8:24, Eph 2:5-8), “I am being saved” (1 Cor 1:8, 2 Cor 2:15), and I have the hope that I will be saved when I die (Rom 5:9-10, 1 Cor 3:12-15). Like the Apostle Paul, I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom 5:2, 2 Tim 2:11. Catholics embrace all of the dimensions of salvation in the Bible.

Jim Dandy
 
Jesus said you must be born again.

Catholics have always believed that Catholics are born again at Baptism.

Catholics believe that Catholics were once saved–are being saved now–and if they persevere until death will be saved in the future.

Salvation is not a one shot deal but all Catholics are truely born again.
 
One of the main problems from a Catholic perspective is that accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior is directly associated, in it’s proponents minds, with a one time salvation event. Of course Jesus must become King, of course the Father must be enthroned again within us-as He’d been dethroned at the Fall-of course the Holy Spirit must indwell man-that’s what we’re missing after all. But this is not an all at once event-this is a process until God is all in all in our lives. Then our justice-our justification- is complete.
 
Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because protestants do not understand “born again” the way we do. If someone asks you if you are born again the answer is YES! If someone asks you if you have taken Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior the answer should be YES! THEN, we can get into what that means to us in terms of salvation–ie. we can and should discuss that a one time profession of faith is not what it is to be born again. When a Catholic replies “That’s nowhere in the Bible” I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak. In my view, that is a key message of the Bible…God loves each of us personally and wants us to reciprocate that love personally. He sent us a Savior and we MUST believe in Him as part of our salvation. I wholeheartedly believe too that faith without works is dead, that we are born again at baptism through water and Spirit, that we receive grace though the sacraments, etc, but let us not forget that our faith is essential to salvation too.

Protestants have adopted the expression “personal Lord and Savior” as a profession of faith. We are told in Romans to confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord. Well, that is exactly what they are doing when they make that statement. We may not use the expression-- we express our belief in the Mass with the profession of faith, the amens, and our approach to the alter. But let us not nitpick that a particular expression is not in the Bible. If someone asks me if I’m born again or if I’ve taken Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I always say yes and then open the door to further discussion about what that means.
 
Prayer_Warrior said:
. When a Catholic replies “That’s nowhere in the Bible” I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak. In my view, that is a key message of the Bible…God loves each of us personally and wants us to reciprocate that love personally. He sent us a Savior and we MUST believe in Him as part of our salvation. I wholeheartedly believe too that faith without works is dead, that we are born again at baptism through water and Spirit, that we receive grace though the sacraments, etc, but let us not forget that our faith is essential to salvation too.
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I don’t think Catholics forget that faith is essential to salvation – but not Faith Alone (Sola Fide). Protestantism is built on the Solas – Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide being foremost.

It’s the Protestant mantra of “Where is that in the Bible?” or “That’s not biblical” that I am responding to when I say “accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior” is not in the Bible. For many, their idea of “confessing Christ with your lips” is limited to the emotional experience of being “born again” by “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” The position of (many) Protestants is that if it’s not explicit in the Bible, it’s not Christian doctrine. But they don’t hold that true for themselves. Protestants have many beliefs and practices that are not in the Bible.

Jim Dandy
Former “Born Again” Baptist
 
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