If you recently responded to an invitation to “accept Jesus as your savior,” and someone handed this devotional to you, let me be the first author to welcome you to the Christian family. Jesus said that the angels in heaven rejoice over every sinner who repents and who am I to argue with angels who behold the face of God… so I, seeking to share the heart of your heavenly Father for you, rejoice along with them all, full of hope for your future as a disciple of Jesus Christ.[1]
That said, I want to poke a little bit at what your “raised hand” in the church service or that “sinner’s prayer” in which you were led actually meant to you. I want to explore what you thought you were committing yourself to when “accepting Jesus as your savior.” Think of me as that would-be brother-in-law who pulls you aside the first time you meet your significant other’s family, seeking to discover the true depth of your commitment and to let you know what you’re in for with a clan like ours.
Part of the rewarding struggle of a marriage is discovering more than you will wish you knew about your beloved and facing that and other challenges together as they come to you over years. It would be a mistake to drown your determination ahead of time by panicking over dark possibilities and your future capacity to face them before they even materialize. Just so, in your Christian journey, God’s grace will provide the strength and wisdom you need, when you need it, if you seek Him for it. Still, I have reasons to prod at your experience. Prod, mind you, not doubt.
A number of years ago, while working with the homeless in New York City, I attended a church event at a woman’s shelter. The guest speaker warmly detailed their tragic pasts, their bad choices, bad luck, loss, confusion, suffering and pain. They were a hurting and vulnerable group. They needed God in their lives. Then things took an unhelpful turn. He called them to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior in what Christians have christened an “altar call.” The problem was, that his appeal was not to repentance and discipleship, but to praying a prayer in order to get divine goodies. He promised them that if they came forward and “accepted Jesus” by “praying the sinner’s prayer” that they’d get their homes back, their families back, jobs, cars, and everything else on the list of the good life American style. It was all blessing and no change, all God’s love and no turning away from a sinful life. The prayer was presented as some magic pill to cure all that ailed them without any real commitment on their part. It isn’t.
I encountered another preacher who boasted that he liked to preach Jesus to drunk people who were too inebriated to understand the “commitments” he was asking them to make. He said, “I’ll trick ‘em into praying the prayer now, and let ‘em worry about the consequences later.” I was flummoxed. What consequences in the prayer? You can’t be tricked into being a believer in Jesus Christ? People aren’t Christians because someone tricked them into saying magical words in a magical prayer?
People become Christians when they wake up to God and repent of living life away from God, of living in indifference to His right-of-place as their Creator and of living in defiance of His loving commands in both heart and practice. Here, the prayer of repentance is prayed in a genuine response to waking up to Holy God full of love, grace, and mercy, ready to forgive and transform us. That prayer is a commitment to follow Jesus who has made provision for that forgiveness through His death on the cross; His sacrifice satisfied Holy Justice, and the repentant faithful are enveloped into His new spiritual family. That prayer anticipates our ongoing transformation to become more and more like Jesus as we strive for the wisdom to walk the path of life revealed to us in His Word —The Bible. It is a promise to join in His work of saving souls and making disciples. We call this “The Great Commission,” telling people about Jesus and guiding them in the journey of becoming like Him. This is one of those things you shouldn’t freak out about ahead of time. You are not alone. You have brothers and sisters in Christ and the promised Holy Spirit to guide and empower you for all the necessaries.
This is “the wedding,” the point of promise, the moment of commitment to do life together with Jesus and with fellow believers. The marriage, however, is found in the marathon of actually doing life together, where we “work out our salvation” in what the Scriptures call “fear and trembling.”[2] Not terror, though it is a “fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,”[3] but respect and awe tinged with a fearful awareness of what it means to be in relationship with the Holy One through Whom all things have been made. We will falter and fail, but rise again through His grace and our ongoing repentance, reaching ever further to be transformed into His likeness. We want to be like our hero.
The rest of this book is designed to present a kind of map to this “marriage,” this journey together with Jesus Christ in His Church. Don’t let it scare you, for God’s grace will support you through it all. He will give you the strength to go on when you need it most, if you keep seeking Him. Here you will meet other believers who have been where you are and have journeyed well, rising when they’ve stumbled in their hearts and minds and, sometimes, in their deeds. They will encourage you in the way. Together, they will present a gloriously daunting vision for being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] Every group develops specialty language whether it’s a baseball team, a company, philosophical tradition or religion. Christianity is no exception. We have a lot of words and phrases that will come naturally to you faster than you imagine. Just make sure that when you hear one of these words to ask about it.
[2] Philippians 2:12, in the New Testament.
[3] Hebrews 10:31 in the New Testament.
