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Why Must We Be Careful in Encouraging People to “Accept Christ”? |
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Terminology matters. Use of the wrong terms can cause misunderstanding, especially if terms are not explained. Reader’s Digest once told of a German exchange student staying with a family in Illinois. The student was invited to an alcohol free prom party. So his host family faxed his parents in Germany asking permission for their son to attend. A quick response came, “No. We do not want our son attending any party where free alcohol is served.”
Terminology is important in spiritual matters as well. Nowhere is it more important than inviting people to come to Christ.
That’s why we must be careful when we tell the lost to, “accept Christ.” The problem is they might do it! The problem is they may accept Christ the way you accept me or I accept you – as no more than a person. A non-Christian who came to Christ in one of our outreaches said to me, “Years ago I accepted Christ. I felt he was the person He said He was and if I lived as good as He lived, I would go to heaven. I never knew eternal life is free and I had to trust Christ alone to save me.” To that testimony, I could add countless more.
“Wait a minute,” you might say, “doesn’t the Bible tell us to “accept Christ?” Yes – in one verse. Let’s look at that verse carefully.
John 1:12 tells us, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” “Received” would have the idea “accept”. How though do you “accept Him”? The last part of the verse explains, “To those who believe in His name.” You accept Christ by believing, i.e. trusting Christ alone as your only way to heaven.
When John talked about “accepting or receiving Christ,” be made it clear to accept Christ means to trust in Christ alone as your only way to heaven.
Conclusion? Ask people to do what the Gospel of John ask lost people to do – believe – that means trust in Christ alone to save them. If you use the phrase “accept Christ,” be sure to explain it the way the Gospel of John does.
Remember – terminology matters. Nowhere does it matter more than explaining to people how to receive the gift of eternal life.
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I’m a studend at National University of Lesotho and we are taking the gospel to the people around the University campus and people accepting the gospel but the problem is that they do not have Bibles. How can be assisted so that we can donate Bible to this communities? If this be possible we can be very glad to have the Bibles these new born people.
Terminology does matter. That is why it’s important to understand the promise of the gospel clearly. No where does Jesus describe himself as the one to be trusted as your way to heaven. He said, “I am the way.” He did not say, “He who believes in me gets to go to heaven.” He said, “He who believes in me, has eternal life.”
Jesus told us what eternal life is (John 17:3) and his disciples knew what it is (1 John 5:11, 20). In his time in the flesh, there were many who heard this testimony, but who refused to accept it (John 5:39, John 6:53).
Today many people preach Jesus in terms that appeal to mens’ desire for pleasure. They use the conviction of the law and conscience to create a dilemma of destiny: Pleasure or torment. They warn men that they’ll miss pleasure if they don’t appropriate Christ to secure their salvation. Their Jesus is a token for man’s selfish desire and purpose: to get to “heaven” — which for them is nothing more than the imagination of their own wicked heart.
Their hope is to “go the heaven when they die.” But Jesus preached, “He who lives and believes in me will never die.” He preached that, “whosoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.” Even to the dead, he preached life and said that if they believe in him, though they be dead, yet shall they live.
Jesus did not preach “getting to go to heaven” on the last day. He preached the resurrection. “Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” And he said, “I am the Resurrection.”
By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
“Heaven and earth will pass away but my word shall not pass away.”
He said his word testifies of him, and he is the word.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, and the ending. There was none before me, and there will be none after me. Besides me, there is no other.”
Now if you “accept Christ” on these terms rather than “use Christ” as your bus ticket to the paradise of your heart’s imagination, exactly how could you be mistaken?
What about sin? Don’t we need to repent? Verily God commands all men everywhere to repent. But what are we to repent from? The scriptures say to repent from “dead works.” You cannot “save yourself” by turning away from sin. Without God, sin is all you know.
So what if you just felt sorry for your sins? Exactly how sorry would we need to feel before we would feel sorry enough? Judas Iscariot was sorry, and he repented of the thirty pieces of silver. The sorrow of the world worketh death. Now godly sorrow worketh repentance, but it is not the same thing. Repentance toward God is when we turn to him and we forsake all other things.
To repent means to turn toward something, because you cannot turn away from one thing without turning toward another. You need to turn toward God. And if you turn toward God, it means that you cannot possibly be turned toward anything else. You cannot possibly be turned toward God and sin. You cannot possibly be turned toward God and dead works. You cannot possibly be turned toward God and mammon. You cannot serve two masters. If you are turned toward anything else, you are not turned toward God, and you have not repented.
A gospel that preaches “heaven” is a dumbed-down gospel peddled by the evangelist that cannot sell the true gospel: Christ. Heaven-peddlers: Repent.
I firmly believe that the issue is eternal life and that begins the moment you trust Christ. It excites me every morning I jump out of bed to know that I will not begin to live forever when I die, I have ALREADY BEGUN eternal life. I find though that in asking lost people to trust Christ as their only way to heaven, you put in a very understandable form what you mean by eternal life because that is where that eternal life will be spent – in His presence forever. After all, Mormons and Hindus also believe that you live forever but certainly don’t mean by it what we do.
Repentance does not mean to change your life. God is not saying, “Clean up your act and come to me.” God is saying. “Come to me and I will help you get your act cleaned up.” Repentance when used in a salvation context means to change your mind about whatever is keeping you from trusting Christ (such as your dependence on good works or a wrong view of Christ) and trust in Christ alone to save you. So when you come to God as a sinner, understand Christ died for you and arose, and trust in Christ alone to save you, repentance and faith have both taken place.
-Larry
Dear Larry,
I would have to agree with you 100% Most make a decision to satisfy the person who is relating the Gospel. There a man where I live who gets people to say THE PRAYER but the people would refute the exclusion of God through Christ Jesus and just believe in the inclusiveness of God for all to be good to make it.
Hello Larry. Here is a personal story to illustrate “about being careful”. We deal with allot of Indians here in Australia. I led a man to Christ & he made a profession of faith. About 5 months later I got a call from him and came and did a follow up Bible study explaining the way of Salvation and trusting Christ alone. He reminded me he was saved and he did not want to go to hell, great! As I was leaving he had a poster on his wall from India with a gold mosque. Over the top of the mosque there were twelve spiritual gurus. I asked him what about these men, where would they go when they died and he said this, that shocked me. Those men are just another face of Jesus.
I was later told if an Indian is truly saved and trusting Christ alone he will get baptized. Baptism to them is telling the world they are leaving their religion, he has yet to be baptized – Chris