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Is the Phrase "Ask Jesus into Your Heart" Biblical?

Updated: 5 days ago

What's our problem with this sweet, popular phrase? While Scripture does speak of Christ dwelling in our hearts, these passages aren't actually referencing an individual conversion experience. Skye, Kaitlyn, and guest Drew Dyck explain.


Skye: Do we think it's a good idea to use the language of asking Jesus into your heart?

And Kaitlyn, you and I—actually all three of us: me, you, and Phil—we’re all on the same page. That it’s really not a great idea. But you and I both kind of made the argument that it’s not biblical either. So that seemed to provoke some of our listeners, and we got some response to that.


Kaitlyn: Which is good, we should have a conversation about it.


Skye: That’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna have a second round of conversation about this. One person said, there are several passages that make it clear that the metaphor of God or Jesus dwelling in our hearts is not an extra-biblical fabrication. This person cites 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, where Paul says that God has given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.


In 2 Corinthians 4:6, he says that God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And probably—well, yeah, we got this one a little bit—Galatians 4:6, where Paul says that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

And the passage I think we got a number of times from different listeners was Ephesians 3:17—


Kaitlyn:Mm-hmm.


Skye: Where Paul says, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”


Kaitlyn:Yeah.


Skye:Okay. So... have we been checkmated by our own listeners, Caitlin?


Kaitlyn:I think another theme we talked about, related to what Drew said and what you sort of mentioned too, Skye, is that we were concerned—not with this as a metaphor for our relationship with Christ or the church’s relationship with Christ (though Drew’s point is so good, that it’s much more common for scripture to say we are in Christ rather than Christ is in us)—but more so with this emphasis on a singular moment. And I’m coming in as the more Reformed person here, and I’m also concerned about the idea that the agency is all ours. Like, Jesus is just powerless at the door, hoping we’ll let Him in. Most of these passages are about what God has given us, apart from anything we’ve done—this is what has happened to us. Not that there isn’t a sense of response to God’s grace, but my concern is that the phrase “inviting Jesus into your heart” makes it sound like He needs an invitation, and the agency is fully on us.


This was partially Phil’s point too—it puts so much emphasis on a single moment, when the verses referenced are beautiful verses about Christ or the Spirit dwelling in us, about an important interpersonal spiritual experience. But they aren’t saying, “Do this, at the moment of your conversion, ask Jesus into your heart.” Often the text is saying, “This is already true of you. It should change how you live and act.” Or in the Ephesians example, it’s about praying that you are strengthened by the experience of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you.


So I think part of our concern was not just about kids—the fact that these abstract ideas are hard for them to grasp. I could give even more examples of kids who ended up with pretty bad theology as adults because no one was clear with them as children, or they were given an oversimplified version of things that stuck. It was the offhand comment, the metaphor—that’s what stuck with them.


So it’s partially: Is this good language for kids? And it’s also that many of us grew up in traditions where, as I said on the show, it was a beautiful thing that evangelicalism wanted our faith to be personal and emphasized a moment of conversion. But that was overemphasized, leading to guilt about, “Did I do it right that one time? Do I need to do it again?”


And it also diminished the sense that this is an ongoing journey of sanctification within the community of faith. Ironically, many of these verses about Christ dwelling in our hearts are addressed to the community—to the plural, collective community experiencing that—not just “Make sure He’s in your heart. You have the agency. It’s about you individually and personally.”


Skye: Amen. Okay, I agree entirely. I wonder though, and again Phil brought this up, if part of our desire to have this clear moment of conversion that we can count, mark, tally, and report back to the missions board or whoever, is really important in American evangelicalism.


It’s interesting that we’ve essentially made up this idea of asking Jesus into your heart as a marker of conversion. Because none of the texts we read are about conversion. They’re Paul speaking to communities of believers, as you said, about maturing in the faith and their devotion to Christ—not addressing nonbelievers. There’s no scene of a nonbeliever being told to ask Jesus into their heart. We’ve made this marker up, when there are other markers of conversion in the New Testament that we don’t talk about. The two that come to mind are: “Repent and be baptized.” Why don’t we use either of those as a marker of conversion?


Kaitlyn: Yes! Yes! Brad East wrote this great CT piece about this. He’s Anglican, and he said in the piece, “I’m saying this to my Baptist brothers and sisters, to Presbyterians, to everyone.” In evangelicalism, we’ve de-emphasized baptism and I don’t know if it’s in that piece or elsewhere, but he also said (and this is my own experience too): the focus on “Did you invite Jesus into your heart?” is so personal that no one else in my community can verify it.


They can be there for the prayer, but it’s an interpersonal experience—“Was it sincere? Did I mean it?”—and that’s what sometimes wracked me with guilt as a kid. No one can say, “I remember this moment.” They can remember the prayer, but not the experience, whereas, throughout Christian history, baptism mattered. Repenting and then being baptized. I love when someone new is baptized in my community and we talk about “remember your own baptism.” It’s public, not personal. There are people who can say, “I stood there. I said I would pray for you, hold you accountable, aid you in learning scripture.”


That kind of public, verifiable thing can be abused in the other direction—some traditions say, “The box is checked, you did it, nothing else needs to happen.” But if you come from a tradition that overemphasized the individual and personal and inner, it can be helpful to remember that, historically, the church valued that my community saw me be baptized. It was a public profession of faith. It was also entrance into a community. I can remember that. I can see a picture of it. I can ask people who were there to tell me about it. I don’t have to sit in my room wondering, “Was I sincere enough? Maybe I should do it again.”


Drew Dyck: Amen. It’s more objective too, which I like. Less subjective, right? Because you’re right—there’s a community, there are witnesses, you’re being inducted not just into an eternal status but into God’s family. And I don’t think it’s coincidental that the practice of accepting Jesus into your heart aligns so neatly with quintessential American values—individualism, consumerism, personal autonomy. Because it’s this inward thing, I have control over it. Like Phil pointed out last time, it’s kind of like making a sale. If you’re the evangelist, you’re thinking, “Okay, let’s close the deal.”


I remember Bill Hybels telling stories of sitting next to someone on a plane, and after the conversation, he’d pull out a sheet and ask them to sign, “You’ve accepted Jesus.” Maybe that was contextualization because the guy was a businessperson. But I think a lot of that thinking has influenced how we view salvation.


Kaitlyn: Totally.


Drew Dick: So that’s good to think about. And I do think it’s healthier and more biblical to lean into the communal dimensions that accompany salvation.


Skye: Okay. So to put a bow on this whole conversation: Of course there’s heart language in the New Testament—even language about Jesus dwelling in our hearts. But none of those texts are conversion stories—they’re about maturing in faith. They’re not targeting individuals—Paul is speaking to whole communities. We have very clear markers of conversion in the New Testament: repentance and baptism. And finally, this “accepting Jesus into your heart” language, especially for children, is so abstract that it doesn’t communicate what we intend it to—especially for young kids.

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