Why the Sinners Prayer Won’t Save You
I vividly remember attending a large Christian crusade with a friend in the early 2000s. My friend also brought along her twelve-year-old daughter, whom we’ll call Molly. That night, at the crusade, Molly prayed to receive Jesus.
As we were leaving the arena, Molly's relief was palpable. She shared with me her joy at having prayed the prayer so she wouldn’t have to go to hell and be punished for her sins.
But today, Molly's life does not reflect a relationship with the Lord. In fact, it never really did. Molly belongs to a street gang and has spent the last decade in and out of jail. What’s most heartbreaking is her apparent lack of desire or effort to change, even after all these years.
So, what went wrong? If Molly truly found salvation that night at the crusade, how did she veer so far off course—and why does she show no inclination to reconcile with God?
Could it be that she never truly gave her life to Jesus—that, even though she prayed the Sinners Prayer?
This may be a radical thought for some. But I encourage you to go through the Bible with a fine-tooth comb and see if you find anyone, even a single person, who prayed for their own salvation. It’s not there. And the so-called Sinners Prayer, which is so popular among evangelicals today? It also doesn’t exist in Scripture.
The Sinners Prayer, on the off chance you’re not familiar with it, is a prayer of repentance where a nonbeliever asks Jesus into their heart. There are different versions of the prayer, but they’re all very similar. Here’s the one Billy Graham popularized for the altar calls at his crusades:
“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.”
Well-meaning Christians will tell you that by repeating the prayer and “accepting Jesus”—“as long as you really, really mean it”—you seal your destiny forever. You’re on your way to eternal glory and need never doubt your salvation.
But again, the Sinners Prayer does not appear in the Bible. No one was even using it until the 1950s! That’s when Billy Graham and some other preachers started giving it mass appeal.
So, how did they come up with the concept of the Sinners Prayer?
They got it from Revelation 3:20, which records these words spoken by Jesus: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”
Their idea that sinners should “invite Jesus into their heart” largely comes from this verse.*
But there’s only one problem: Jesus is talking to Christians here, not nonbelievers in need of salvation! When we explore the historical setting of Revelation, we see that Jesus “knocking at the door” is encouragement for the lukewarm Christians in the city of Laodicea to rekindle their love for Him: men and women who had already received eternal life but needed to get their priorities straight.
So, no, Revelation 3:20—the flagship verse for those who advocate for the Sinners Prayer—does not set a biblical precedent for telling unbelievers to pray to get saved!
All right, fair enough. But you may still wonder what the big deal is. What could possibly be the harm in leading a non-Christian in a prayer to open their heart to God?
Well, it could be harmful if it gives the person false assurance!
Answering the question of who will go to heaven, Jesus says it is not determined by whether we address Him as “Lord” but by whether we live in God’s will (Matthew 7:21). In other words, true conversion, which takes place by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), is evidenced by a life that is obedient to God.
Not that we should expect perfection, but there will be a new direction. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If we’re genuinely saved, we should be able to look at our lives before and after placing our faith in Jesus and see change.
My concern about the Sinners Prayer is that it may give assurance of salvation to people who shouldn’t HAVE assurance: people who haven’t experienced true change. And that’s a scary proposition.
At crusades and evangelical outreaches, it’s easy to get swept up in the emotional music and the light shows and the sight of the crowds pouring down to the stage. A person may “pray the prayer” not because they’re genuinely convicted of their sin and have a burning desire to follow Jesus but because of peer pressure, others’ expectations, or because they’re looking for eternal fire insurance.
The fact that they prayed the Sinners Prayer then becomes “proof” to them that they’re good with God. Even if it’s decades later and they’re still not bearing fruit.
In hindsight, I can’t help but wonder if Molly hadn’t gone forward at that crusade, maybe she would have been a bit more on guard against the temptations that started coming her way soon after that, in her high school years. Temptations that would lure her down the wrong path.
But because Molly had said the magical words, she was convinced she was going to heaven and had nothing to worry about.
When sharing the Gospel, I personally find it best to bypass the Sinners Prayer. I don’t want to risk feeding into someone’s false assurance, especially when you consider that praying a prayer has never been a requirement for getting saved.
Take your guilt before God, I tell the person I’m witnessing to. He will forgive you. Acknowledge and confess your sins and be willing to turn from them. You can pray to God about these things at any time on your own. But don’t base your assurance of eternal life on the fact that you prayed a prayer.
I tell them that saying yes to God isn’t the end but merely the beginning: that real faith is always backed up by a life of good works (James 2:14).
I warn them that now that they’ve heard the Truth, God holds them responsible for that knowledge and that they need to act on what they know while there’s still time. And then I pray—silently to myself—that they’ll decide to follow Jesus…and that for the right reasons.
L.B.
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*Source: The Gospel Saves
