Do I Know God?

I am reading a book by Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham's Grandson) titled "Do I Know God". It is a good book. The theme is: Do I have a real personal relationship with God. In the book Tullian lists several ways people are deceived into thinking they have a relationship with God, when in reality they do not.
This post will deal with Deception #1.

Deception #1: "I prayed the sinner's prayer. Isn't that enough?"

He begins this deception with an example of a young man who prayed the sinner's prayer as a teen, at a Youth Conference. He comes to Tullian for counsel.

The rest in quotation is taken from his book:

As Jason and I talked, it was clear to me that he did not know God. He did not have an authentic, eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. Regardless of what the speaker led Jason to believe at the youth conference, he was spiritually lost, still dead in his trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).
I never saw Jason again.

What he and others like him fail to understand is that entering into a relationship with God is a spiritual transaction, not a physical one. In other words, God doesn't save and adopt you into his eternal family just because you repeated the words of a prayer, walked an aisle, raised your hand in church, or signed a commitment card.

You enter into a spiritual relationship with God when He opens your blind eyes and softens your hard heart and you become aware for the first time that you are a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior. At that point you run to Him because you understand you need Him and you want Him.

I love what C.S. Lewis said, "Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him." In other words, we enter into a relationship with God when we respond to God's initiative, not when God responds to ours. We love him because he first loved us.

Don't get me wrong--praying the sinner's prayer and walking forward at a Billy Graham Crusade or raising your hand in church isn't wrong or inappropriate in itself. But it can mislead you into thinking that such an action alone offers you a guarantee of salvation and entry into God's family. It doesn't.

Physical, external acts like repeating the words of a prayer don't turn slaves into sons. Divinely crafted internal revolutions do. And initially, only God knows who those people are, because it is an act of God. End quote.

Is praying a sinner's prayer wrong, No, I did on October 30, 1990. Thru that prayer God came into my heart. But that was after intense conviction on God's part, an effectual call on my life. The prayer didn't save me Jesus did. My life has changed since this day. God has changed my heart something I could never change. I could stop many bad things and reform myself to a point, but I could never make my life right with God without His intervention and initiative.