Sinner’s Prayer; “Been there, done that”

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Written by Peter Youngren on May 8th 2009

In most of the meetings I conduct I lead people in what is commonly called the “sinner’s prayer”. This usually means that the preacher says a prayer sentence by sentence and those who want to receive Christ repeat that prayer. I think the sinner’s prayer has been a blessing to many, though, shockingly, it’s not in the Bible. In fact there is no record of anything called a sinner’s prayer until the mid-1800s when the concept became popular under the ministry of D.L. Moody. In the last 150 years this prayer has taken hold in evangelical churches. In fact, in some circles what signifies the moment you become a Christian is going to the front of a church building at the invitation of a preacher and repeating “the prayer”. Phrases like, “she must be a Christian because she said the prayer” or asking someone, “Have you said the prayer?”, demonstrates the huge importance many place on this.
As already stated, I believe in and practice the “sinner’s prayer”, but there is a flipside. Tragically we run the risk of reducing something as powerful as receiving new life in Christ to a technicality of merely repeating words.

Often a preacher does not explain or declare what Jesus did on the cross, putting away our sins, but simply finishes his sermon with this line – “if you need peace in your heart, and you want a better life just repeat these words after me”. and then he goes right into the sinner’s prayer. Surveys by the Barna Group, another reputable organizations indicate that a significant percentage of the population in the United States and also in Canada have at some point accepted Jesus by “saying a prayer” and a significant part of those, who did so feel it didn’t work for them. Now the idea of receiving Jesus no longer excites them, “been there, done that.”

How were people born again before the concept of the sinner’s prayer. By believing in Jesus, followed by water baptism, often immediately upon declaring their faith. No prayer saves, although a sinner certainly can pray because “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”,. Believing what Jesus did and confessing Him as Lord is the way of salvation. If you believe in your heart that God put your sins on Jesus and that Jesus rose again from the dead and is Lord than you are saved whether you repeated a prayer or not. Let’s de-mystify this sinner’s prayer. If we preach sermons that reveal next to nothing about Jesus Christ and Him crucified and then finish off with a sinner’s prayer, we may cause collateral damage. People mistake the whole idea of receiving Jesus for a formula of prayer of accurate words when it has all to do with the heart’s believing.
All that to say; don’t hurry people into a prayer. Instead spend much time revealing what Jesus did on the cross.
-Peter

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Comments:

Amen brother Peter! Keep lifting up Jesus!

Andrew
~ Canada

I believe your message of grace vs. legalism is right on!
I’m sure there are people everywhere, including preachers and pastors in bondage to religion and legalism who are hearing your message and having everything they believed in, stood on, and trusted to hold them up, collapse beneath them.
Let’s pray for God to Bless them as He speaks to their hearts through you and as He gently and compassionately changes their hearts and minds bringing them into the light of the Truth. And God Bless you Pastor Peter for speaking the Truth. Praise Jesus!

Follo
~ Saint John, NB

I’m glad you addressed this issue Peter. You simplified and summarized the idea nicely. I think it is important for people to stop and think about this point, so as not to give people the wrong idea of Christ.

April
~ S.Korea

So true, its not the sinner’s prayer that saves its the saviour Jesus that saves. I remember a fellow beleiver who used to go around amongst us keeping a score card as to how many people prayed the sinners prayer with her. Some of them having obliged her just because she was so pushy.

A person is truly born again in his or her heart only when they get a revelation of the cross & their deep need of a saviour in their helplessness. It can be simple acknowledgement of faith in their own bedroom. A meeting of a sinner with their saviour..halleluyah!! Glory to God. Its certainly is a very powerful & humbling moment in one’s life & the person acknowledging that knows it very well.
We have been asked to sow the word of the GOSPEL , the good soil will express faith & bear fruit accordingly. Some sow & some water but one day the seed bears fruit. Some times I feel many births have been aborted because they have prayed the prayer thinking that’s another magical formula that can be tried along with several others that they have run to without having any revelation of Jesus.
Sometimes I feel beleivers talk about Jesus to others only because they are being told from the pulpit to do so & they do it out of guilt..I did my duty!! Presenting the Gospel is sharing a Person & his Love ,there shouln’t be any pressure about it.

I agree scripture definately points toward immediate subsequent water Baptism which is a puplic acknowledgement of what has transpired in your heart. Your going in to the water depicting your burial with Jesus christ, you having died with him & your coming out of the water as having been raised with him in resurrection with his new life in you..Glory to God you are a new creation!!!!!

Why is it that things written in ACTS are not being practised today!! Only because men have added their human wisdom to it..Just the other day I heard a beleiver talking to another beleiver , water baptism is a huge step you better think it through..
That ought not be so..

Lets kill all the religious mundane things that have crept into the people of the way..lets do what we have been called to do - show others the true WAY

Beena Thomas
~ Oakville, Ontario

What do you say about the doctorine of “women are saved by childbirth” The scripture verse they use to back up this ” intersting idea” is 1 Ti 2:15
The interpration goes soemthng like this….For woman to be saved….
1. She must have children
2. She must have unwavering faith,
3. Love,
4. She must be walkign in “holiness”
5. and sobriety
Very interesting! How about those women who can’t or don’t have children?
According to this intersting doctrine & with the list of all these, could any woman be saved?
Blessings.

Hagere
~ Ontario

Well said Peter. When asked “how can I become a Christian?”, I tell them the truth that a Christian is one who has Christ in them and proceed to tell them the Whole Gospel message, then I ask “do you still want to become a Christian?”, then I pray for them and then with them and they receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit during this prayer time. It’s amazing how the Lord immediately begins teaching them, many in dreams.
We must tell them the truth “all of it”............

Lorraine A. Molyneaux
~ Bouchette, Quebec Canada

Allow me to offer just a little illumination on the subject:
About thirty years ago (I am as old as Pastor!), I led someone in the noted Sinner’s Prayer. As I went about my business afterwards, I wasn’t quite so analytical about whether or not it stuck or counted.
The next day, however, the person who prayed the prayer admitted to me they had been feeling intensely depressed and planned to commit suicide. But as they thought about the Sinner’s Prayer they had just spoken, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, and (obviously) it saved their life.
We need to stop being a spriitual rebel without a cause, and over-analyzing the new birth.

Eric
~ Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Getting someone to know our Lord Jesus Christ does not take much time. Consider Jesus with the woman at the well, you have to know where people are to be able to explain to them what Jesus has done. Remember Nicodemus.

Cosmas Dzuda
~ Waterloo

Pastor you are so correct that there is great confusion in the Sinners Prayer. I entered this information anonymously to protect my friend’s identity when I repeat his story. A few years ago my Maritime friend who was a Baptist feared that his own Mother wouldn’t be saved because she was in a different denomination that did not repeat the Sinners Prayer. I told him that his anxieties over this were for nothing because his mother accepted and loved Jesus and just because she prayed differently she still believed. He believed in the Sinner’s Prayer so much that immediately after I explained all this to him, he then made me repeat it over the phone long distance just to be safe and ease his anxieties. I pray your message reaches him so he is not so confused today. God Bless

Anonymous
~ Ontario

I am lost for words when I see claims of salvation that are not according to scripture. So many people being lied to then repeating that same lie to others as if was the truth. Salvation comes by following Jesus through death burial and resurrection. Jesus came to abolish death as death from Adam’s sin is the sin of the world. Unless we die with Jesus and are resurrected like Christ then we are yet in our sins. Apostle Paul in Romans 6 explains what happens to us during baptism. We MUST die then we are made alive by the quickening of the Holy Ghost. We change from Death to Life when we are baptized into Jesus name. So many many things change for us after baptism. You can NOT accept yourself into the kingdom and you can not believe yourself into the kingdom. You must be regenerated/reborn then you may enter the kingdom. Study the word, it is all written there for you to find. I wish you all salvation but Jesus said that if anyone that tries to enter the kingdom by any other way is a thief and a robber. He said to follow him! He tasted death so we would not have to but we must be baptized like he was baptized on the cross—the only difference is that we don’t actually physically die. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. Adam caused Death to fall on mankind, Jesus came to remove the keys of hell and of death from Satan so we can live forever.

Bill
~ Hamilton

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