J.D. GreearStop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved

At the center of the Christian life are Jesus and his saving work, through which believers everywhere can enter into the gift of eternal life. Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to atone for all peoples sin, this we know to be true. Less certain to some, including me, however, is the matter of assurance in that salvation. This is the subject that J.D. Greear attempts to make clearer to his readers in his book, “Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart”.Now, while that title may seem a bit intense or out of the ordinary, which I certainly do not argue against, it does indeed put to rest the issue of those struggling with salvation assurance in a way that can hopefully lead its readers to finally stop praying the sinners prayer, to stop bearing the weight of salvation on his/her shoulders, and to place hope in the true thing that can surely bring salvation: Jesus and His saving work on the cross, through God and His saving grace.In my evaluation of the authors concept, I want to make extremely clear that while this book may not have been written in the “deepest” way it could have been, it has been written in a very clear and easily understandable manner that (hopefully) any Christian, at any point in their life, can read, understand, and take it’s message to heart. At the basis of the message that J.D. attempts to get across the idea that believers can indeed have assurance of salvation, and this is defended by three principles that he brings up and evaluates, and these are:“A present posture of faith and repentance; perseverance in the faith; and evidences of eternal life in our heart—a love for God and a love for others, particularly other believers. These three combine to give us a powerful sense of assurance that we belong to God”These principles are laid out and explained beautifully throughout the book. J.D. goes about unpacking what he means by a posture of faith in the early chapters of the book. He explains that faith and repentance are inseparable, not because they are very similar, but because they are two sides of the same coin: They belong together. Simple. Where true faith is, repentance will also be. He explains that repentance is the action part of faith; it is the active change of posture from a life bent on serving self, to a life in service of God. Repentance understood this way must mean a 100% change.That is, there is no part of one’s life that remains apart from seeking God. It is a full surrendering to Creator. Secondly, J.D. explains what we should expect to see in those who are truly saved is perseverance in the faith. What he means is that when one has a true faith, and when one is truly saved, their actions will show this in the way they act through trials—note that they will be facing trials, as evidenced in scripture, and that the trials may make the believer doubt, but it is the perseverance that is the marker of salvation. As Jesus explains in Matthew 10:22,“He who endures to the end will be saved.”Finally, as J.D. dives into the matter of eternal life in one’s heart, he reveals that the two markers of this are a love for God and others. Not surprisingly, this matches up with what we find to be said in scripture over and over again, in both the Old and New Testament.As I reflect on what I read, I am so grateful to have been pointed towards this book. The title stood out and confused me, and I am thankful to J.D. for having strategically worded his title in this eye-catching way. I find myself closely identifying with many of the doubts that J.D. himself went through in his early years. The problem for me was that, while I had doubted similarly, I had never really sought out the answers to the doubts. Fortunately for me, the book was very easy to read and understand and was a rather quick read. I agree very much with the points he brings up. I believe that salvation is not by works, and that that does not relieve us of any action on our part—which J.D. emphasizes well:we have the responsibility to pray for others, to love others, to love God, to seek God, and to place our hopes and faith in Him and Jesus’ work on the cross.This list may seem long, but there is so much peace and joy to be found in doing these things. While, at the same time, we need to be careful to not have a “fake” repentance, which in reality is no repentance at all. I have been guilty of this at points in my life, and I was ashamed and embarrassed to read the description J.D. so accurately lays out. The book was very enjoyable, and I did not seem to find any points where I disagreed with J.D., and this I attribute to the fact that his points seem to be very scripturally based and backed up. I appreciate his reliance on scripture and church teaching, and I know that I will be recommending this book to friends and family in the near future. I want to end this part of the review with the idea that J.D. brings up about not being too easily swayed by feelings, belief is the important thing, not feelings.I have already discussed some of the impact this book has had on my personal spiritual life, but I will expand here. It would be a blatant lie to say that this book was just another book I read for class that I will soon forget about. This book will stay close on my bookshelf (metaphorically speaking, as I bought the digital version of the book) and will be referenced often, especially when I am approached with friends or family who are struggling with the issue of assurance of salvation. Honestly, I did not know that I was struggling with this until I read the book. It has been a subtle struggle I guess, something that I tended to avoid speaking or thinking about. One way that I will begin to implement the concepts talked about in this book pertains directly to how I think about salvation. That is, I want to impress in my head the picture of placing my hand upon Christ’s head, with the full belief that His work is what saves me. This is the most important step for me, specifically because I am the type of person who tends to have a “debate” with God. I tell God that I will serve him in x way, and that I expect y in return (most of the time this exchange is done without me actually speaking to God, as if I can keep it a secret from him or something). I recognize how foolish this is and how immature I have been. I have been self-serving and selfish. As I write this review I can confidently say that I am changed, and not by my own efforts, but because I believe that God has enabled me to change and to have a different posture towards how I approach him. To use J.D.’s wording, I will place Him on the throne, and self on the cross.

How do you know if you're really a Christian or not? Is there a way to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're really saved?These are questions I'm sure we've all asked from time to time. But for many, there appears to be an almost fearful uncertainty about their salvation--a fear that they may have professed faith in Jesus, lived faithfully but then, at the end, find out they're going to spend eternity in hell.And so maybe they're not "saved enough," so they pray a prayer, maybe get baptized again, and are good until the next crisis of faith.JD Greear, pastor of The Summit Church, knows what this is like. "If there were a Guinness Book of World Records record for `amounts of times having asked Jesus into your heart,' I'm pretty sure I would hold it," he says as he opens his new book, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart. His early years were a seemingly endless cycle of pray a prayer, get baptized, be jazzed up for a while, have a crisis of faith and doubt his salvation and pray the prayer again.He's not alone in his experience. "The Enemy--one of whose names in Scripture is `the Deceiver'--loves to keep truly saved believers unsure of their salvation because he knows that if he does they'll never experience the freedom, joy, and confidence that God wants them to have," he writes. "But he also loves to keep those on their way to hell deluded into thinking they are on their way to heaven, their consciences immunized from Jesus' pleas to repent" (Kindle location 236).He wants genuine Christians to have confidence in their salvation--but he also wants those who have false assurance to understand the truth of their situation. These twin goals drive this short book.But is certainty something we're promised--does God want us to be sure that we're saved? Yes, writes Greear:"I can say with certainty that God wants you to have certainty about your salvation. He changes, encourages, and motivates us not by the uncertainty of fear, but by the security of love. That is one of the things that makes the gospel absolutely distinct from all other religious messages in the world. I'll be so bold as to say that your spiritual life will really never take off until you have the assurance of salvation." (Kindle location 337)This point, that our spiritual lives "will never really take off" until we have assurance of our salvation, is crucial.While some treat the notion of assurance or certainty as something that leads people into laziness and apathy--after all, if "once saved, always saved" is true, the it doesn't matter what we do, the argument goes--Greear's point is that assurance is what motivates our obedience rather than hindering it.Repentance and belief in the gospel--"the biblical summation of a saving response toward Christ," as he puts it--demands not that we pray a particular prayer (not that that's a bad thing), but that we obey Christ.To be saved means to repent of your sin and to fix your eyes on Jesus and His finished work by faith--and this inevitably leads to a changed life.Greear's connection of obedience to repentance and belief is important--perhaps the most important thing in this book. It's both the most challenging thing for modern evangelicals to grasp about the gospel, but also among the most liberating.Too often we get caught up in questions about whether or not a call to obedience is a denial of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Greear, like many others before him (including the authors of Scripture), is very careful to make it clear that obedience is not the grounds of your salvation--rather, your salvation is the grounds of your obedience.He writes:"There are points you can never pass spiritually until you are confident that Jesus will support the full weight of your soul. There are sacrifices you'll never make and commands you'll never obey unless you are convinced of their eternal value... You'll never give up your life in radical obedience until you are radically assured of His radical commitment to you... Religion commands us to change our behavior, but it cannot change our hearts. It can tell us to do what is right, but cannot give us a love for the right. Only the gospel and the assurance it yields creates a passion for the right in our hearts, because only the gospel goes deep enough to actually change the warped nature of our hearts." (locations 378, 388, 402)"The gospel of God's grace creates in us the desire to obey," he writes (location 482). This is so important for us to get--in fact, if it's the only thing you take away from Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, your time reading the book will be well spent. Genuine obedience is never motivated by fear--it's motivated by love. Our certainty of God's love for us in Christ is what allows us to obey Jesus, imperfectly though we do. But make no mistake: where there is no evidence of belief, there is no genuine belief."Saving faith, because it is rooted in a new, born-again heart, has in its character the impulses that produce good works, he writes. "Where those good works are absent, so is saving faith. It's not that good works are equal to, or interchangeable with, faith, but that true faith always produces good works" (location 1978).Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart is a very good book, and is sure to benefit a lot of people. Give it a careful read and share it with others. You won't regret it.

Please consider reading this book to understand the true Gospel.

I didn't really have the problem of "habitually" asking Jesus into my heart (just once was enough for me... ) but I wanted to read what the author had to say about assurance of salvation.Rev Greear has an easy and truthful style, and has no hesitation in presenting his own struggles in this area. This certainly gives him an openness, authenticity, and honesty which IMHO can sometimes be lacking with Christian writers.This is a good book that presents the process of Christian conversion in a very different light to the traditional evangelical view. It's not "way-out" or "wacky" so conservative Christians should have no problems digesting it. What it does is - and this was great for me - it explains the relationship between faith and works in the process of salvation. It cleared up a lot of questions in my own head about where our actions fit into our salvation, and left me feeling a lot clearer about where I stand, where God stands, and where Jesus stands, when it comes to "being saved!"The book is well written, well thought out, and logical. It's well supported by scripture, and The Bible references are all there so you can check out each reference as you read through. I thought it was a quality read and a helpful volume. Highly recommended.

Summary“…many are headed into eternal judgment under the delusion of going to heaven.” (Pg 6)“Don’t try to find assurance from a prayer you prayed in the past; find assurance by resting in the present on what Jesus did in the past.” (Pg 47)These two quotes clarify why this book was written and why we all need to read it. Sadly, all over the world there are unsaved people who falsely believe they are saved, sitting beside faithful Christians who spend every day wondering if they truly are. This book is written for them and for us who need the tools to help them. Within are answers to critical questions each believer must settle in their heart before they can live in confident faith.Greear also brings new life to words like belief, faith, repentance, and grace which have become so commonplace in churches that they have been nearly stripped of their true meaning and significance.ReviewThis topic hits home for me because I know what it’s like to struggle with doubt and have seen it in the churches that I serve. Assurance of salvation might be the most frustrating battle that gospel preachers face. Each week we look out at the people who we pastor and wonder, “Are these people confident in their salvation?” “How can I combat needless doubting and convince believers that they are secure in Jesus?” “How can I teach against false assurance?” “How many of these people know they are saved, beyond any doubt?”J.D. Greear knows this heartache all too well and writes from a place of pain, passion and elation as he takes us on the journey that helped him discover the true gospel of peace. His style is a wonderful combination of grace and sensitivity for those who struggle with doubt, while pulling no punches with any who would use fear and doubt to control people. There is no “easy-believism” to be found in this book. It is full of hard truths told by a man with a soft heart.He gives simple, applicable, and convincing scriptural insight coupled with well thought out explanations and applications – without being wordy or using unnecessary jargon. He has a great teacher with a remarkable strength for answering unasked questions (like “What if I have no ‘moment of salvation’”?). He treads carefully through difficult and controversial topics (like free-will), discussing them biblically and illustratively, but isn’t afraid to admit his limitations and allow the mysterious parts of salvation to remain a mystery. Though unafraid to address controversies, he doesn’t get swept up in endless debate or plant his head firmly in the cement, but keeps the main thing the main thing by rising above the fray to teach us about what is most important – our salvation.My favourite parts of this book are Greear’s evangelistic outbursts. It’s as though he’s writing along, helping us understand an important topic, and can’t help but start preaching the gospel. This book comes from a very authentic place.There are a lot of quotables in this book that belong on a poster or the wallpaper on my computer. I found myself saying “Amen!” aloud quite often. His explanation of progressive sanctification was so wonderful and powerfully simple that it gave me a deeper love for my Saviour – a great gift.ConclusionThis book isn’t just for new believers who need assurance, but for any Christian who struggles with doubt, hopelessness, feelings of condemnation, or habitual sin. As I read it I found that it was uncovering some chinks in my spiritual armour like unrepentance and sins that I had grown comfortable with which were keeping me from God. I am indebted to this author who helped me move from a scholastic reading of his book to penitent and thankful prayer before my loving Lord. It is my prayer that everyone would read this book and be assured of their place before Jesus and at peace with God.

Awesome read

Great read for every Christian and worth having it in your collection!