easier said than done

Earlier today I was walking along the streets of Cubao when I passed along this, theater-turned-church-turned-miracle-center-of-sorts by a famous televangelist. As I passed I was met by a couple of teenagers who handed me a gospel track and promised me salvation. "Para sa kaligtasan sir!" (‘for your salvation sir’), and what followed was something shameful for my part I mumbled: "salvation, is easier said than done."

Now don’t get me wrong. I just reacted the way I have probably reacted for a couple of years now whenever I would be approached by people who wish to save me, which oftentimes mean: proselytize me. I’m still down with the whole idea that its something that is freely given by grace through faith –after all Scriptures testify that and I won’t contest that.


However, what I would not agree is the way that it is presented as something that is: ‘easy.’

Come on, its not –if it were it won’t take the vicarious humanity, and sacrificial death of the Son of God.

The way we present it via our well calculated evangelistic tools of God as judge, we as hellbound sinners, and Christ as this bridge to escape hell, only if we’d pray those magic words that calls on Jesus as our personal lord and savior, has for the longest time made me feel that the gospel is so cheap that only catchphrases could sum up its totality and that its benefits could be reaped by uttering the magic words ‘lord’ and ‘savior’ in a prayer.

We of all people should be the first in line to say that its not that simple.

Moreover, I believe that we Evangelicals of all people with our high esteem of the Scriptures should be the first to admit that the ‘Sinner’s Prayer1’ is not at all biblical. And that faith as it was spoken in Scriptures is not mere profession of belief nor intellectual ascent to doctrinal formulas –rather it is living in the context of something.

It is appropriating truth.

It is appropriating the truth that God in His love for us godforsaken humans has taken the initiative to be gracious enough to give His life for us. It is living in that context of God that faith as it is presented in our cherished verses that speaks of faith in God.

As for evangelism, I suggest, we must re-articulate not as something that is easy, but instead say that it is simple, but it entails having the trust to let it all our cherished images of ourselves and God go and to come as we are to this God who in Christ is reconciling the world to Himself.

But like I said earlier…

...to speak of such is oftentimes a case of something that is easier said than done.

1. A Sinner's prayer is a Christian term referring to any prayer of repentance, spoken or read by individuals who feel convicted of the presence of sin in their life and desire to form a personal relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ.