The words “personal Savior” are never mentioned in Scripture. In the greatest evangelistic book ever, Acts, how is it that the Apostles call sinners to Christ? That’s a good question because it should tell us how we might need to call sinners to Christ. The answer is they call sinners to receive Christ, not into their hearts as a Depeche Mode style “personal Jesus”, but as ‘Kurios’, or Lord. Lord means ‘master’ or ‘boss-man’.
As Ernest Reisinger said in his book ‘Today’s Evangelism: It’s Message and Methods’ pg. 49-50, “what sinners need is for Christ to do something for them, instead of them needing to do something with Christ!” See the vast difference?
Secondly, we are called to repent. The future of our lives should look different then our past. We must have sorrow for sin, but also sorrow unto enthusiastic change only because of grace.
Those who do these two things can rest assure that Christ lived the perfect life they couldn’t, and was crushed for their sin instead of them. Those who do these two things, and do so continually until they die are those who can call themselves Christians because they know they are right with Christ (our Judge), get to become like Him, get to commune with Him and His people, and will get to know and experience Him forever! Amen!
These are James R. White’s closing comments in a Calvinist/Arminian debate. These words speak well on the current state of the gospel (a self-help gospel) and modern evangelism.
