Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
We’re often told a person will be saved if they pray the sinners prayer. But that’s not true. Reciting a short prayer won’t save anybody. We’re often told if we raise our hands to receive Jesus we’ll be saved. But that’s not true either. And a lot of people have been misled into thinking they’ve done what it takes. The problem is that reciting a prayer or raising my hand can be done without really understanding what God requires of me. When I pray, I may not understand what I’m saying because words mean different things to different people. I can tell God I’m a sinner without knowing what a sinner is. Or tell Him I repent without a clue of what I just said I would do. And this type of shallow, uninformed invitation to follow Christ may be one reason so many people who say they’re Christians don’t act like it. Some hearts don’t seem to have changed. A person can become religious, but not more loving, self-controlled, forgiving, honest or pure than they were before. The only difference is, now they assume they’ll go to heaven.
Something is wrong with this picture. Something must be missing. As we look back at the early church we see people who became amazingly different. When they got saved their hearts changed. They lived lives that were a great witness. They were respected and admired, even by people who didn’t agree with them. Not that they became perfect, but they did become much more Christ–like. I believe a large part of the reason that their lives changed so dramatically was because they understood the cost of following Jesus before they were saved, and I believe water baptism played a big part in this. When they were baptized there was no mistaking what they were saying to God.
50 - The Jerusalem Council
49 - The Antioch Model
48 - Finding Timothy
47 - Baptism with the Holy Spirit
46 - Eternal Perspectives
45 - Spiritual Jealousy
44 - Seeing Jesus Alive
43 - The Mercies of David
42 - Young Mark
41 - Prophetic Guidance
40 - Flattery and Complements
39 - Choosing To Pray
38 - Honoring Flawed People
37 - The Barnabus Model
36 - Clean
35 - Peter’s Revelation
34 - Saul and Peter
33 - Trusting Saul
32 - The Son of God
31 - Chosen Vessels
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