From Deception to Salvation

From Deception to Salvation: Why the Heart Needs Regeneration, Not Just an Invitation

In many churches today, people are told to “invite Jesus into their hearts” as the way to salvation. While such language often stems from good intentions, it dangerously oversimplifies the gospel and distorts the nature of true conversion. Scripture paints the human heart not as a suitable home for Christ, but as the very source of corruption. Jeremiah 17:9 declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” From within the heart flow “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness” (Mark 7:21–22, ESV). The heart, then, is not a place Christ merely enters—it is the very thing He must replace.

When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, He did not say, “Invite Me in,” but “You must be born again” (John 3:3). Salvation is not Christ entering our old heart—it is God creating a new one. Ezekiel 36:26 reveals this divine miracle: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.” The call of the gospel is not sentimental invitation but supernatural regeneration. Only the Spirit of God can awaken the dead sinner, replace the heart of stone with a heart of flesh, and cause him to walk in obedience to Christ.

The danger of the “invitation gospel” is that it subtly keeps man at the center, as though Jesus were waiting helplessly for permission to save. But Christ is not a guest to be welcomed; He is the Sovereign who commands repentance and faith. The true gospel does not invite Christ into our depraved hearts—it calls sinners to surrender before the Lord who alone can make them new. Anything less reduces grace to sentiment and salvation to decisionism.

True conversion, then, is not about letting Jesus in but being made alive in Him. We do not offer Christ a space in our hearts; He gives us new hearts capable of faith, love, and obedience. The gospel is not an invitation for Christ to fit into our lives—it is His divine act of recreating us entirely for His glory.

 

© Apologetic Ministry