The room is dead quiet. Rows of churchgoers hushed in their seats facing the ground with their eyes sealed shut. The only noises floating throughout the auditorium were that of people shifting in their seats and the light fuzz from the preacher’s microphone—until his booming voice broke the static silence as he said, “If you are interested in accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior; I invite you to repeat this prayer after me…Dear Lord, I am a sinner…” He goes on to lead the congregation statement by statement through the prayer as he utters phrases like, “I ask for your forgiveness” and “I invite you into my heart.” I can remember it so vividly, as I recall this experience of mine when I was 7 years old in my baptist church back home. I began to think, “Wow, just one prayer and all these people can be saved from hell! That’s incredible!”
It is experiences like mine here and many others that people have had, and are having, that cause us to ask the question: Can a prayer save me? The prayer I repeated after my pastor, parent, or friend that I know is saved and loves me, but is there something more?
We cannot begin to answer such a question without fully understanding what it means to be saved in the first place. We then ought to turn to the only undefiled source of truth we have: the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16).
The Bible presents that the only way to gain salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. For it teaches that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that however believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This salvation is needed because all mankind has sinned (Romans 3:23), earning our rightful judgment from God which is death (Romans 6:23), but this salvation is provided because Jesus took the judgment we deserved by dying on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21) and rose from the dead proving the sufficiency of his sacrifice (1 Corinthians 15) to allow the way for God to grant this free gift of salvation to all (Titus 2:11). So salvation comes through faith (Ephesians 2:8) in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12) and him alone (John 14:6).
Salvation comes by faith, not a prayer!
This does not mean that prayer is not involved at all in salvation. For if a person truly understands the gospel, believes it by accepting Jesus to save them, and desires to appropriately declare such a decision through faithful prayer to the Lord, then praise God! Prayer can serve as a way to communicate with God that you are moving beyond understanding and believing facts
and into fully trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life. This is how prayer can be involved in salvation, but not responsible for salvation.
One must never base their salvation on a prayer or believe that a prayer can save them, however they can use prayer as a means to vocalize their faith and articulate it to partake in adhering to the great apostolic declaration that “if you confess with your lord that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
Therefore, Prayer cannot save you, but faith does. Prayer serves as an avenue of expression and declaration of one’s faith. A joyful proclamation that Jesus is Lord over your life. That the old has passed away…and the new has just begun.
Written by Brock Bridle