Ask Jesus into your heart...

WOW – what a week....Last weekend I was blessed to go to a concert called “Rock the River” - part of the Billy Graham Evangelical group. All I can say is it was quite the experience. As Franklin Graham delivered a message of Hope to everyone there, and the people who went up and prayed and asked God for forgiveness and for Jesus to enter into their heart.

Whenever I hear that sentence now – would you like to ask Jesus to come into your heart – I almost get shivers, like it's such a bad thing.

Anyways – I had a talk with my dad about it, and here I am reading another blog and it's highlighting how the Gospel has become diminished into a few brief things: Forgiveness, Salvation, etc.

To read this blog – feel free to check it out: http://daveharder.ca/2012/10/i-am-just-going-to-say-it/

Anyways, the whole concept of asking Jesus to come into your heart is all too well known to me. When you come to Christianity and your newfound favourite preacher is a man named Paul Washer, you learn a thing or two about the other extreme.

Now – don't get me wrong, having an evangelical type event and asking people to come up and pray and get right with God – yes, it should be the centre of attention of the whole concert. There's just one problem – after the prayers were done, it seemed people were on their way back to their seats, forgiven of their sins, but never talking about how these people need to now walk in a different way, in a new way of life. So instead the concert continues on.

Now – I do believe that some people get “saved” at one of these events, but it's not just because of them going up and praying. It's because they knew they had a bad life, and they knew they were living in the wrong way, and they didn't know there was a way back to God – but now that they've been forgiven their relationship has been restored with God, through Jesus Christ.

What I remember about Paul Washer and his preaching, is him asking “can you tell me where it says in scripture to come and ask Jesus into your heart and he will come in?” - it's not there, you won't find it. Now, the teaching of someone to “ask Jesus into your heart” goes much deeper than just getting forgiveness.

Let's picture your heart as a dark room. Now that room is dark, but the only way to change it is to put a light in it or to put in a window. Now the room has light. The room has changed. Now, take your heart, the core of your life and values, as evil as we've been in our past, ask Jesus into it, it would be like putting that light or window in your room. You'd never be the same. You'd be a new creature in Christ.

Unfortunately, these are details that are rarely explained, because we live in a democracy(majority rules) and we live in a Capitalist world(where the bottom dollar is where it counts), so, if you end up with a Pastor who is influenced by these things, of course you'll never be told these things. They want you to keep coming to church – paying tithes and other stuff, when in reality it should be about you being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ(Romans 8:29)

If anything – I know there are lots of people who lack Jesus in their lives. I too know that there are lots of church leaders who lack Jesus in their lives. I pray that many leaders would pray and ask Jesus into their hearts, and that they'd pray without ceasing until it happens.

A person who lacks Jesus in their heart is someone that lives as though the world revolves around themselves. In reality, the World revolves around God – on his terms, at his command.

A person who has Jesus in their heart is someone that lives as though the world revolves around God. In reality, they are just walking the earth doing the will of God.

Well, if you want to hear more about Jesus coming into your heart and what that would look like – I suggest watching this video from Paul Washer.