The Typical Conversion...

I was reading some old correspondence with a friend and thought I would share this with you.  It is from July 2007:


I was reading Driven By Eternity (John Bevere) this evening and read an insight that I found disturbing and interesting at the same time.  I wanted to share it with you as well.  The excerpt is lengthy, but worth the time to read.  If there are typos, I apologize.  It's 2 AM, so my typing is not at its best.

THE TYPICAL CONVERSION

The gospel we’ve preached has been lopsided with emphasis placed on accepting Jesus by praying a sinner’s prayer.  We confess him as “Lord,” and once done we are saved eternally.  Yet this is not what Jesus teaches.  He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 7:21, NIV).

If we would just listen to His statement without filtering it through years of unbalanced preaching, teaching, writing, and singing on the grace of God, we would see it contradicts our modern gospel.  His words couldn’t be clearer – not everyone who has prayed the sinner’s prayer, confessing Him as their Lord, is going to heaven.  And if they are not going to heaven, there is only one alternative.

Let’s rehearse the typical evangelistic service.  The preacher preaches a “come to Jesus and get ‘blessings’” message.  He tells how Jesus will give us joy, peace, prosperity, happiness, health, heaven, and so forth.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s God’s desire to bless us, but Jesus never used the blessing to entice people to follow Him.  Then after the forty-five-minute-or-so sales pitch, he then asks the audience to bow their heads and asks if they were to die tonight would they go to heaven?  He even encourages everyone to look to the person to their left and right and ask the same question in order to help recruit them.  “If they can’t say yes,” he says next, “take them by the hand and bring them forward.”