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“Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?”

“Won’t you accept Jesus into your heart and life?”

These are just a few questions that Christians have used for years to invite people to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe you have been asked one of these before, maybe not. Maybe you even responded to such an invitation and made a decision to “accept Christ” but never really followed through. Either way, the premise of questions like these is wrong. You see, the spiritual reality is not whether you will accept Christ or not—the question you should really be asking yourself is, “Will Christ accept me?”

“Depart from me, I never knew you.”

Jesus gave a sobering warning in the Gospel of Matthew:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

The sad truth is that in spite of all the grandiose claims and decisions some have made or the lives lived in apparent religious duty, there are those who claim to know and follow Christ whom Christ will one day reject.

If Jesus were to speak this verse today, He might say something like this: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did I not accept you? Did I not pray and ask You into my heart when I was a child? Did I not attend church and give money? Did I not preach, teach, and serve? Was I not baptized in Your name?’ And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

On the Day of Judgment, Jesus will not accept everyone, even many of those who claim to have known and served Him so faithfully. So, how do you know He will accept you? How do you know that you will not hear those eternally condemning words, “Depart from Me; I never knew you?”

“Examine yourselves!”

When writing to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul implored them to:

“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Look at your own life, your own heart, and see what the Scriptures implore you to see. Do not base your confidence in a prayer or profession, but look at the reality of who you are in light of Scripture:

1. You are a sinner.

No matter your religion, nationality, color or gender—you have violated the moral standards, the law of God.

“Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 7:23—“depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” Sin is violating God’s law—His moral standards. Sin is “lawlessness”: living in disobedience and rebellion to the Law of God. The eternal principles of God’s Moral Law were summarized for the Hebrews in the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20:

Have no other gods.

Do not create graven images.

Do not use God’s name in vain [as profanity].

Honor the Sabbath.

Honor your parents.

Don’t murder.

Don’t commit adultery.

Don’t steal.

Don’t lie.

Don’t covet [desire what you do not possess].

The perfect expression of that law, however— indeed the very embodiment of the Law—is Jesus Christ. It is Christ who said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).

Therefore, sin goes beyond simple conformity to the code; sin is a matter of the heart. Lust is adultery, hatred is murder—all of which violate the character of Christ and God’s moral law.

“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:10-11).

“As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one’” (Romans 3:10-12).

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

2. Jesus Christ is your sin-bearer.

Your violations of God’s righteous standard will be punished. “For the wages [deserved or earned payment] of sin is death…” Romans 6:23a tells us. It was that death Christ took upon Himself when He died upon the cross:

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

“And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Even though you are guilty, Jesus Christ took your sins upon Himself—He bore the penalty for your lawlessness, so that you might yield your life in faith to Him.

3. Jesus Christ demands that you repent, turning to Him for new life.

“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15).

“And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Mark 8:34-37).

The reason so many people are deceived about their standing before God is that they think all they need to do is add Jesus into their life—a little prayer here, some good deeds there, and everything will turn out great. However, Jesus did not come to merely improve our lives or make them better. He came because we were all “dead in your trespasses and sins … having no hope and without God” (Ephesians 2:1,12).

Jesus came to give us life—new life, abundant life (John 10:10). But if you want to continue to live your life as you please—in continued denial and disobedience to Christ—you will lose everything, even if you “gain the whole world.” It is you, the lawless, unrepentant and unbelieving, that Jesus will deny and cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 21:8). However, if you turn to Jesus Christ as a lost and guilty sinner, putting your complete trust in Him for salvation, He will give you a brand new life to live for Him.

“In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

Leaving your old life behind and surrendering your new life to His Lordship will result in radical changes as you are molded more and more into His image. Your life will bear the marks and produce the fruit of your faith in Jesus Christ, for you will have Christ and Christ will have you.

Will Christ accept you? That depends entirely on what you’re expecting Him to accept. If you think you can “do your best” to clean up your life and make it acceptable to Him, you will surely fail and be lost forever. However, the moment you abandon all thoughts of your own merit or goodness and simply cast yourself upon God’s grace through Jesus Christ, you will be accepted immediately: “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

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