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About Jesus Steve Sweetman The
Emotional Appeal The old hymn entitled
“Just As I Am” ends with the words “I come”.
For me these words were so real as a child. Our
church seemed to sing all seven verses of this song every Sunday as an
invitation for salvation. I
usually responded to this invitation to appease my so-called feelings of
guilt. I now know that guilt
is not a feeling but a position in which we stand before God.
We are either guilty or not guilty in the eyes of God our Supreme
Judge, whether we feel guilty or not. I came and I came and I
came again. I came so many
times to the front of the sanctuary to get saved that I could have
easily worn my own personal path in the carpet.
Getting saved every other Sunday made me feel good for a while
but for one reason or another the feeling soon dissipated.
Within a day or so I wondered where my salvation went and I felt
as lost as ever. I now know that salvation has little to do with feelings and has
everything to do with simply trusting Jesus with my life.
I think the emotional
appeal with the quiet soothing music playing along with the persuasive
words of a pastor can produce an emotional response in a heart. It’s
the Biblical truth that says that what you sow you reap.
If you sow to the emotion, you’ll reap an emotional response.
This emotion kept driving me to the altar. What really made me sure
of my salvation was a 5 second unemotional prayer to Jesus when I was
all alone in my bedroom in Feb. 1970.
I’ve had absolutely no doubts since then.
It’s ironic that I spent so many emotional times in church and
this 5 second prayer did more than all those times put together.
It’s quite possible
that the Holy Spirit’s call on a life might get lost in all the extra
trappings of our appeal. There’s
got to be more than an emotional appeal to bring someone to Jesus.
I’m not against altar calls.
I just think that the one doing the calling should be the Holy
Spirit, and we shouldn’t do anything to hinder His work. I might even be able to
successfully argue that an altar is more Old Testament thinking than New
Testament thinking, but I won’t do that here. What I’m talking about
is an over emphasis on emotion. I don’t want to discount emotion
because I know Jesus can and does cause emotional reactions in us.
That’s a given. We
are emotional people, but the emotional reaction isn’t salvation.
It’s only one result of salvation and doesn’t always manifest
itself the same way with everyone. Because
I experienced some emotion at the front of a church building doesn’t
necessarily mean I got saved.
The altar call is meant
to be a public display of our commitment to Jesus, and so it is to a
degree. The |