Cheap grace not the way to salvation
Editor: While on vacation, I turned on the TV in our motel room and found a “Christian” station.
The program that was airing was a replay of a Sunday sermon from the most popular pastor in America who “pastors” the largest church in America. After spending around 30 minutes telling the congregation that their financial, healing, relationship, or employment blessing was on its way (evidently from the cosmic sugar daddy Genie-God in the sky), he invited people to “accept Jesus into their hearts” to be saved.
No mention of sin, heaven, or hell. No mention of confession or repentance. No mention of the cross or blood of Jesus on our behalf. No mention of God’s amazing grace. Just “accept Jesus in your heart”. This is cheap grace personified. Sadly, however, this is not that unusual in today’s church. In order to be “non-threatening” to people, the true gospel has been hijacked by a watered down “gospel lite” which is, in reality, no gospel at all.
Sadly we have made salvation crossless and bloodless, and have cheapened what Jesus accomplished on the cross. I wonder how many people in churches today who have “accepted Jesus into their heart” are not truly born again, and, when standing before Jesus after they die will hear those terrifying words: “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” That’s a horrible thought.
In order to be truly saved, one must understand the gravity of sin, our helplessness to save ourselves, the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross on our behalf, the necessity of confession and repentance of our sin, and the act of our will in faith of trusting in Jesus’ shed blood and death in our place as the only way to salvation.
Sure sin, hell, repentance, and the cross and blood of Jesus are threatening and make us squirm, but understanding these is essential in one being saved. No one can be truly born again without knowing these. Hard as it may be to hear, this is the truth. I ask you, if you have only “accepted Jesus in your heart, are you truly born again?