Prayers Won’t Save You

Conversion has been reduced to a ritual of praying some version of the prayer of acceptance. While I do not doubt that many a good Christian have gone through this and that prayer is in fact a valid expression of the faith, I also believe that many, if not more, have been deceived and turned away by this practice.

This ritual has caused people to believe they are saved not because of God, but because they prayed, as if uttering some magic chant. That’s how it inadvertently looks like, or sometimes even how it’s intentionally made to look like. The meaning of conversion is to get a person to pray a prayer after making him understand some doctrine, and then shortly after assure them of eternal salvation. In this manner, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the end results shifts the object of saving faith from Christ to a mere powerless prayer.

Because of the emptiness of this ritual, many who have been forced or pressured at one point feel disdain and distrust in Christinaty as a whole. This makes them more averted to it, in addition to man’s natural awkward cringing reaction when talking about God, especially Christ. So although this method of conversion does some good, sometimes in some ways it actually does harm to others. It may also be seen in another way: this method does good despite doing harm to others. I will not decide which view is better. In either case, I feel a personal bias against it, and the way we view prayer in general.

Prayer has become a sort of magic, chant, ritual, wish, or sometimes a way to invoke the supposed power of optimism. But as far as I am concerned, I would agree with atheists that prayer is indeed powerless. It is this secret that many have denied. The truth is, prayers don’t change anything, but God does. Prayers can’t make miracles; God can. Prayers won’t save you; God will.

Now I don’t mean that we shouldn’t pray at all, because prayer is one of the means that God has ordained to shower us with blessings. These blessings many have already written about and I would like to skip that already. What I mean to say (and what I want you to remember) is that prayer is not in itself powerful; it only becomes powerful because of Christ. And so when we pray the sinner’s prayer or some version like it, it only becomes effective because God honours this expression of faith.

But prayer is not the only way to express faith. Each one has a different inclination in the moment of their conversion (which may not really be even a single moment at all). Some burst forth weeping, crying, laughing, singing, dancing, shouting, and other loud sounding gerunds. Others have it in a solemn epiphany or a quiet realization. There are those who simply decide to follow Christ, without any burst of emotion. And of course, there are those who pray.

It matters not, for the infinitely creative God made us differently, and He understands the language of each heart. And though true conversion is simple, it is never forced nor always defined by praying a powerless prayer; conversion simply means believing in the work of Christ.