{"id":191,"date":"2005-04-11T10:30:43","date_gmt":"2005-04-11T15:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2005-12-03T08:57:05","modified_gmt":"2005-12-03T15:57:05","slug":"telling-people-theyre-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2005\/telling-people-theyre-saved.html","title":{"rendered":"Telling people they’re saved…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salvation is one of those things that’s so simple a child can understand, and yet so deep that we’ll all still be asking questions in eternity.<\/b>  But it is something that we need to study carefully, especially if we believe it’s part of our mission to tell others about God’s Salvation (2Co 5:20<\/a>).  Not only is it important when we’re telling others how to be saved, it’s also important when (and if) we suggest to them that they are<\/i> saved.<\/p>\n

I often think of a man I used to work with.  One day we were discussing Christianity, and he mentioned something about having said a prayer when he was a child.  It suddenly hit me that there must be tens of thousands of people out there that “said a prayer”.  These people figure they have all their bases covered – if by some strange chance the Bible is right, it’s ok, because I “said a prayer”.  So now I can do what I want.<\/p>\n

So what’s the basic requirement for salvation?  Well, from a human standpoint it’s put a number of ways in Scripture – the most familiar being in John 3:16<\/a> – “believe” in God’s Son.  It’s not a prayer that saves you, nor going forward in a meeting, and certainly not all the good things you’ve done over the years, hoping they outweigh the bad things.  No, it’s God that does the saving, because of the price Jesus paid on the cross.<\/p>\n

Fellow Canadian blogger Tim has written an interesting article<\/a> expressing concern about a recent event in which people made decisions for Christ.  Now I don’t think that making a public decision is necessarily a bad thing.  But Tim does make a good point that we have to be very careful how we present the Gospel.  Two things I think should be kept in mind:
1. How we present the Gospel in the first place<\/b> – Were we clear?  Did we quote Scripture and make sure we were absolutely in line with what the Bible says?  Did everyone understand what we were asking?  People might “make a decision” for one thing, thinking they’re now “Christians”, when really they’re not.
2. Do we give these people false assurance?<\/b> – Now that someone has made a public decision, do we tell them that they’re now a Christian?  How do we know?  Only God knows the heart.  We don’t want someone going through life thinking they’re “safe” when really they’re lost.<\/p>\n

When we teach our Children’s Ministry Seminar, we suggest that people go right back to Scripture when they’re doing follow up.  Are you a Christian?  Well, what does the Bible say?  Let the Lord lead them to their own conclusion.  But be careful about telling someone that just because they’ve said a prayer they’re now a child of God.  Instead of encouragement, it could end up being an inoculation against the Gospel itself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salvation is one of those things that’s so simple a child can understand, and yet so deep that we’ll all still be asking questions in eternity.  But it is something that we need to study carefully, especially if we believe it’s part of our mission to tell others about God’s Salvation (2Co 5:20).  Not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-and-bible","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"\nTelling people they're saved... - Finding direction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2005\/telling-people-theyre-saved.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Telling people they're saved... - 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