Where is this in the Bible? Not only will you not find this statement in the Bible, you will not find any of the phrases found in the Bible either. Show me where we even read the phrase, “accept Jesus.” You will not find it. Show me where you will find the Bible say “personal Savior.” You will not find it either. We ought to be concerned and see some red flags when we cannot find in the Bible the very phrases the religious world uses to teach people that they are saved. There must be a problem if I cannot find these things in the scriptures. Further, show me one example of someone accepting Jesus as their personal Savior. Not only will we not read in the Bible to accept Jesus as our personal Savior to be saved, but you do not read of a person saying that they did this.
Further, I believe we need to ask what this phrase means? What does it mean to accept Jesus as your personal Savior? How do I accept Jesus as my personal Savior? But how does one do this? Can I simply say the words that I accept Jesus as my personal Savior? Is this enough? Can the criminal or murderer do nothing more than utter simple words? Is this all that the Lord requires of me for salvation? Not only does it go against the scriptures, but it goes against our logic. Do we allow our criminals under our legal system to simply say that they are sorry and we let them go free? No, that is completely unacceptable. The criminal has to change his life, show true contrition, and obey the laws of our government before consideration will be given to be released into society again. So why do we believe that God will simply overlook all wrongs by saying sorry? Why do we think that sorry is what God has required of us? When someone wrongs us, is a simple statement of words enough? No, we want to see more than that. We want to see repentance and change. Well, so does the Lord. We should not think that God is some sort of push over that we can do what we want and give a tongue in cheek sorry and everything be okay.
Revelation 3:20
Where this idea of letting Jesus coming into your heart is often proved by the passage in Revelation 3:20. So let us look at this passage and see if this is what it says. Here we read, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
Now we need to see a couple of points. First, is this speaking in literal terms? Is there a door somewhere that Jesus is knocking on that we need to go find so that when we open it, we can have dinner with Jesus? Not at all. We are not talking about literal doors being opened. This is an analogy. Just as two verses earlier, Revelation 3:18, is analogy. The people were not really naked. But the Lord was using this as a figure to show them that they were spiritually lacking, making the point that they were spiritually naked. This passage says absolutely nothing about salvation. Jesus is not telling unbelievers what they must do to be saved.
When we read the context of this passage, we learn that this letter was written to the church in Laodicea. Thus, the letter was written to people who were already saved at some point. What was the Lord’s message to the church in Laodicea? They are lukewarm Christians and are going to be spewed out of the Lord’s mouth because of this. Their works had no fire or love behind it. The message to these in Laodicea in verses 19-21 is that they need to change, and if they do, God will change the outcome. These Christians were on the verge of being spewed out, but they could overcome with the Lord if they would simply rekindle the fire by being “zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19). To make what we read in these churches apply to unbelievers is to ignore the context of who the Lord was talking to. The message to the Christians in Laodicea was that they needed to repent and become zealous for the Lord again. If they do, then the Lord will return to them, but they must give Him the opportunity. We must point out again that there is nothing about feeling Jesus in their heart in this passage.
Let us listen to the words of God and not the words of men. Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21, Colossians 2:11-14, Romans 6:1-7, Romans 10:9-12, and other passages teach us that we need to repent of our sins, confess our sins to the Lord, be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and live our lives in service to Him. These are the conditions the Lord has given us for salvation