In Old Testament days, access to the presence of God was restricted in a way that can be difficult for us to fully imagine today. The high priest would enter the Holy of Holies once each year to make atonement for the sins of the people. Behind the veil was the place associated with the presence of God, and only the high priest was permitted to enter.

Most Christians are familiar with that picture. We are also familiar with the New Testament account of the crucifixion, when Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and the veil of the temple was torn in two.

But how often do we stop to consider what that torn veil means for us today?

When Jesus died on the cross, the tearing of the temple veil signified that the separation between God and man had been dealt with through the sacrifice of Christ. Isaiah 59:2 speaks of sin separating people from God, but the blood Jesus shed on the cross accomplished what no animal sacrifice ever could. His sacrifice was perfect. He was without sin, and His blood provided the way for us to draw near to God.

We may hear that and think, “That’s wonderful. We no longer need a priest to go before God on our behalf.” But I wonder whether we truly understand the full reality of what that means.

The Veil We Leave in Place

The veil in the temple was a physical object, but I believe many Christians still live as though a veil remains in their hearts.

We live as though we do not really have access to the presence of God. We live as though closeness with Him is reserved for certain moments, certain places, or certain people. We may believe intellectually that we have access to God while failing to live as though that access is a present reality.

The veil I am speaking of is not one God has placed there. It is one we often put there ourselves.

Sometimes we treat access to God as merely a spiritual position rather than a daily reality. But what would happen if we truly believed, with our whole hearts, that we can and should live in the presence of God every day?

Would it change what we do?

Would it change what we say?

Would it change what we think?

Walking in the Light

For the born-again believer, access to God is not merely a theological idea. It is a reality.

John 1:5 says, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Scripture repeatedly presents Jesus as the Light, and darkness cannot overcome that Light.

If we are truly walking in the presence of God, then we are choosing to live in that Light. If we ask God to tear down the veil we have allowed to remain in our hearts, and if we truly believe what Scripture says about the power of His Light over darkness, then we can begin to experience a life increasingly shaped by the presence of Jesus Christ.

Of course, that sounds easier in theory than it often feels in practice.

There will still be times when sin weighs us down. There will be trials, discouragement, temptation, and weakness. We should not expect perfection while we are still living on this earth.

But if living near to God—walking in His Light and remaining conscious of His presence—is even a glimpse of what the Christian life can be, then what a beautiful life that is.

Questions Worth Asking

That realization ought to make us pause. If Christ has opened the way for us to draw near to God, why do so many of us still live as though we are at a distance from Him?

Perhaps we should ask ourselves:

• Why are we not living with greater joy?
• Why are we not living the way God desires us to live?
• Why do we struggle to love others the way we should?
• Why do we so often struggle to understand God’s will?

I would never want to assume the answer is the same for every person. There can be many reasons for spiritual struggle. But perhaps, for some of us, part of the problem is that the temple veil is still very much present in our hearts.

Not because Christ failed to tear it down.

Not because God is withholding His presence.

But because we continue living as though the barrier remains.

My Prayer

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this, and my prayer has become simple: God, tear the veil in my heart.

There are certainly other parts of living a life devoted to God. We must die to ourselves daily. We must walk by faith. We must obey, trust, repent, and surrender. But the image of the torn veil has remained heavily on my mind, and I believe it is worth considering.

Christ has already opened the way.

So perhaps the question is not whether the veil has been torn.

The question is whether we are living as though it has.

Christian, ask yourself:

Is the same veil that once restricted access to the presence of God still hanging in your heart?

And I must ask myself the same question:

Is it still hanging in mine?

• Be soft on the person and hard on the problem. Address the issue directly while treating the person with respect.
• Approach everyone as someone who can teach me something. Stay curious and willing to learn from different experiences and perspectives.
• Use pauses and natural eye contact. Speak deliberately and become comfortable with a moment of silence.
• Make people feel seen, heard, and remembered. Pay attention, listen closely, and follow up on details they have shared.
• Remember and use people’s names. A small effort can make an interaction feel more personal.
• Praise publicly and criticize privately. Recognize accomplishments openly and offer correction with discretion.
• Show that I care before giving feedback. People are more receptive when they know I have their interests at heart.
• Communicate expectations clearly. Unspoken expectations can become unnecessary resentment.
• Build connections by helping others first. Offer something useful without immediately expecting a favor in return.
• Remember that others want connection, too. Take a chance on starting a conversation while respecting their response.
• Practice going first. Introduce myself, extend the invitation, or send the first message.
• Respond with “Yes, and…” when appropriate. Look for ways to develop someone’s idea and contribute something constructive.
• Avoid habitual complaining and gossip. Be someone whose conversation builds trust.
• Develop my storytelling skills. Give a clear setup, explain the tension, and bring the story to a meaningful resolution.
• Be friendly and approachable. Warmth, kindness, and a little humor make it easier for people to connect with me.
• Prioritize the quality of my relationships. Strong connections deserve consistent time and attention.
• Build an inner circle that gives honest feedback. Surround myself with people who will help me recognize my blind spots.
• Get comfortable saying, “I don’t know about that yet.” Be honest about what I know and open to learning more.
• Study how I speak. Review recordings to improve my tone, pacing, clarity, and delivery.
• Develop other leaders. Use my influence to help others grow in confidence, exercise judgment, and take initiative.

The Bible consistently presents belief in Jesus Christ as the requirement for salvation. For Christians, this is familiar ground. Scripture says:

• John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
• John 6:47 — “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
• John 5:24 — “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
• Acts 16:31 — “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

The question I want to consider is this: Does belief not require some level of understanding?

I understand that salvation is based upon faith in Christ, and faith necessarily involves believing without seeing. Because of that, I do not believe a person must fully understand God—or possess some deep theological knowledge—before being saved. None of us fully understands God.

But there is a difference between not fully comprehending God and not understanding the basic truth of the Gospel at all.

If a person does not understand who Jesus is, what salvation means, what they are being saved from, or why they need Christ, then what exactly are they believing? How can someone meaningfully “believe on Christ” if they have no understanding of the Christ upon whom they are being told to believe?

I realize that this can sound as though I am making salvation unnecessarily complicated. I am not trying to do that. I believe salvation is simple. But simple does not mean mindless, and faith is not the same thing as merely repeating words someone else has told you to say.

I once heard a sermon discussing what might be called “salvation quotas”—the pressure, present in some Christian circles, to produce a certain number of professions of faith. The preacher told of Bible college students bragging about how many “souls they had won” during the week. One student supposedly described pulling up beside someone at a stoplight, rolling down the window, and saying something along the lines of, “Do you want to be saved? Just say this prayer and you’ll be saved!”

That example illustrates the concern I have.

Surely there must be some foundation of understanding before a person can genuinely believe upon Christ.

A person must first recognize that he needs Christ. He must understand, at least in a basic sense, what Christ did on the Cross. And he must personally choose to turn to Christ.

Salvation is not about cornering someone, pressuring them, or making them feel obligated to “believe” when they do not understand who Christ is, why they need Him, or what they are being asked to believe. There must be some degree of understanding, along with a genuine willingness of the heart.

Once that understanding is present and the person is willing to turn to Christ, then yes—believing upon Christ is sufficient. Salvation is not earned through theological expertise, religious works, or complicated rituals. A person simply turns to Christ in faith.

But that is very different from pressuring someone into repeating a prayer.

This is where what is sometimes called “easy believism” becomes dangerous. The danger is not in saying that salvation is simple. Salvation should not be made complicated. The danger comes when belief is reduced to nothing more than saying the correct words, regardless of whether the person understands or believes what those words mean.

If someone—especially a child—does not yet understand Christ or the Gospel, then forcing that person to say a prayer accomplishes nothing. Likewise, if someone understands but is unwilling to turn to Christ, pressuring that person into repeating words does not change the condition of the heart.

That raises another uncomfortable question: Why are Christians sometimes so determined to get someone to say the prayer?

I believe pride can sometimes be part of the answer.

Imagine that you have an opportunity to speak with someone about Christ. You explain the Gospel, but the person does not fully understand yet. Or perhaps they understand but are not ready or willing to make that decision.

How does that make us feel?

We may feel as though we failed.

We wanted to be able to say that we “led someone to Christ.” We wanted to return to church and tell others about the person who got saved. We wanted the satisfaction of knowing that our evangelistic effort produced an immediate result.

And when that result does not come, pride can begin to interfere.

The temptation then becomes: If I can just convince this person to say the prayer, I can count this as a success.

Of course, I am not saying that every Christian who strongly encourages someone to be saved is motivated by pride. Many believers genuinely love people and sincerely desire to see them come to Christ. That desire is good.

But Christians are still human. We still struggle with pride. We still dislike failure. We still want visible results. We still want to feel that we accomplished what we set out to accomplish.

Because of that, I believe we must examine our motives carefully. Are we trying to help someone understand the Gospel and genuinely come to Christ, or are we trying to produce a profession of faith so that we can feel successful?

There is an enormous difference.

At the end of the day, God does the saving. We do not.

Our responsibility is to faithfully give people the truth. We can explain who Christ is. We can explain sin, the Cross, salvation, and the need for faith. We can answer questions. We can plead with people to consider the Gospel seriously. We can pray for them.

But we cannot make their decision for them.

God has given each person the responsibility to respond to Him. The believer sharing the Gospel does not receive control over the free will of the person hearing it.

That point is worth emphasizing:

God does not place the free will of the lost person into the hands of the Christian trying to win them.

You cannot believe for someone else.

You cannot repent for someone else.

You cannot choose Christ for someone else.

And you cannot turn someone into a believer simply by persuading them to repeat a prayer.

Our task is not to manufacture conversions. Our task is to faithfully present Christ so that people can understand what they are being called to believe.

Then the decision belongs to them.

We give them the truth.

God does the saving.

And they must make the choice for themselves.

This is why I believe we should take the danger of the so-called “Sinner’s Prayer” far more seriously than we often do. There is nothing inherently wrong with a sincere believer expressing faith in Christ through prayer. The danger comes when the prayer itself is treated as the thing that saves.

I submit that a misused Sinner’s Prayer may give far more people a false assurance of salvation—and ultimately leave far more people lost—than many Christians would like to admit. A person can repeat every word correctly, walk away convinced that a transaction has taken place, and yet never truly understand or believe upon Christ at all.

The prayer does not save.

Christ saves.

The Heart of a “Doer”

Tonight during my prayer time, the Lord put something on my heart about the kind of Christian who is a “doer”—someone who likes to figure everything out on his own, who is headstrong, likes to take control, and tends to live by the mindset, “If you want something done right, just do it yourself.”

That describes me in a lot of ways. I often want to be the one doing everything because I feel as though I am the only one who can do it right. I do not always like working on projects with a team because I can easily begin thinking that everyone else is doing things wrong and that I would be better off handling everything myself. I like being capable. I like being in control. I like knowing that I can accomplish something through my own effort.

Coming to the End of My Strength

Tonight, though, I began wondering whether this might be connected to some of the struggles I have been experiencing. God may work differently with different people, depending on what He is trying to teach them. There may be Christians who are not as headstrong, controlling, or determined to do everything themselves as I tend to be, and perhaps God deals with them differently. But what if, in my case, God is allowing me to reach the end of my own strength because that is exactly where I need to be?

The thought that struck me tonight was this: What if the Lord wants me to come completely to the end of my rope? What if He is allowing me to become defeated, overtaken, powerless, and weak—not because He wants to destroy me, but because He wants me to finally stop depending on myself?

Maybe I need to reach a place where I know beyond any doubt that my strength is coming from God and not from me.

His Strength, Not Mine

That possibility feels significant because if I accomplish something good while I still believe I am capable of doing everything on my own, I can easily take credit for it. I can look at the result and say, “I did that.” Maybe God does not want me living that way. Maybe He wants to bring me to a place where, when something good happens, I know that it was His strength carrying me rather than my own ability.

I keep thinking about the words of Scripture: “For when I am weak, then am I strong.” I believe that means there is a kind of strength that only becomes available when I recognize my own weakness and draw my strength from Christ. When I believe I am strong enough in myself, I naturally depend on myself. In that state of mind, I am not looking to God for strength because I believe I already possess what I need.

Maybe that is part of the lesson God is trying to teach me.

Where God Meets Me

Maybe my weakness is not merely an obstacle that I need to overcome. Maybe it is the very place where God wants to meet me. Perhaps I have spent so much of my life trying to become stronger, more capable, more independent, and more in control that I have not fully learned what it means to depend upon Him.

And perhaps, for someone like me, learning dependence on God requires reaching a point where my own strength simply is not enough anymore.

I do not know for certain that this is what God is doing, and I want to be careful about assuming that I completely understand His purposes. But the thought deeply affected me tonight. What if coming to the end of myself is not the end at all? What if it is the place where I finally begin learning how to draw my strength from Him?