The Sinner's Prayer: What is it?
You are probably familiar with the “sinner's prayer.” Perhaps you have even prayed it at some point in your life. This prayer is often traced back to the evangelistic campaigns of Billy Sunday (1862-1935) in the early 20th century.
The following example of the sinner's prayer is taken from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your name. Amen.”
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This prayer is for anyone who has come to believe the Gospel and wants to talk directly to the Lord. Many new converts have prayed the sinner’s prayer as a way of expressing their newfound faith.
But how does someone come to believe the good news in the first place? Well, your spiritual eyes are opened to the promise of the Gospel, and you embrace this good news for yourself. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
The reformer Martin Luther came to faith in Christ while meditating upon Romans 1:17, which states, “For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Romans 1:17). Prior to being born-again through faith in Christ alone, Luther relied upon his religious deeds and pious efforts to get into Heaven.
Martin Luther was not converted by praying a particular prayer. He was converted by the power of the Holy Spirit. After all, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6).
When a person comes to faith in Christ, he is not only born again but also redeemed, forgiven, saved and justified. Converted people are “children of God” (1 John 3:1).
After the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples on the Day of Pentecost to become bold witnesses for Christ, “Peter and John were speaking to the people ... many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand” (Acts 4:1,4). These new converts did not pray the “sinner's prayer,” but would have gladly done so if Peter and John had invited them to pray such a prayer.
When someone first believes the good news, the sinner's prayer provides a new believer with a wonderful way to not only profess their newfound faith in Jesus but also their earnest desire to live for the Lord.
But what about people who prayed the sinner's prayer earlier in life, and yet are unconverted today? As Jesus explained in the Parable of the Sower, (see Matthew 13:3-9) some people lose interest in the message they initially seemed to gladly accept. The devil and the world, along with trials and temptations, can distract and discourage people who previously gave some measure of mental and verbal assent to the Gospel. Unfortunately, when the seed of the Gospel falls on shallow soil, there is no lasting root or fruit.
God works the miracle of conversion by producing repentance and Christian faith in a person's heart, which are flip sides of the same coin. And it actually runs much deeper than simply praying the sinner's prayer. As Joseph Mattera recently wrote, “Saying a prayer without true repentance and submission to Christ leads to a false sense of security” (See my 2013 CP op-ed titled, "Can Someone Be Saved Without a Commitment?”)
New converts are typically grateful to humbly speak to the Lord in prayer when invited to do so. And while many believers have never prayed the sinner's prayer per se, every believer offers various prayers to the Lord that flow from genuine repentance and saving faith in Jesus.
Likewise, some followers of Christ have never specifically “invited Jesus into their heart.” And yet Christ lives within every person who is converted (see Romans 8:10, Ephesians 3:16-17, 2 Corinthians 13:5). Belief in the Gospel does not require that you use the specific phrase: “I invited Jesus into my heart.” Some believers express their faith and commitment to Christ with other holy words and godly phrases.
And so, you see, salvation does not depend upon praying the sinner’s prayer. But salvation does require conversion as the Holy Spirit produces faith through the power of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
One day when Paul was talking to “leaders of the Jews ... some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe” (Acts 28:17,24). The text says nothing about those new believers praying a particular prayer upon entering the Kingdom of God. The same is true in Acts 20:21 when “a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.”
The Holy Spirit produces repentance and faith through the preaching of God's Law and Gospel. Some new converts are immediately invited to pray a particular prayer, while others end up praying to the Lord in their own words in response to receiving the free gift of everlasting life in Heaven (see Ephesians 2:8-9).
A young man named Alex said he had prayed the sinner's prayer at least 100 times. Alex, like every believer, was converted by God at a point in time, not because of a prayer, but through the power of the Gospel.
Salvation is given to everyone who calls on the name of Jesus in repentance and faith, and one's assurance of salvation grows by standing upon God's Word and trusting the promise offered in the Gospel. (see John 3:16)
As Evangelist D. L. Moody (1837-1899) wisely stated, “Faith is the root, and assurance is the flower.”
Dan Delzell is the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska.
