We all stood around him as he closed the session, it must have been the last day of the Retreat, years ago, although I remember it like it was yesterday. 

No, not the day I got saved. 

It was the closing day of this Christian event, this probably well-meaning preacher noted that if any of us did not remember the date of our salvation, we were probably not saved. 

Bang! 

That hit me like hell. (Probably because I thought I was heading there there soon) 

This was the day this preacher sowed a seed of doubt into this salvation I held dear, the day I seriously doubted whether I was saved, a Christian. 

Thing is, I couldn’t remember any dates whatsoever, yet he emphasized how we may never have been saved if we didn’t “recall dates.” 

By the way, I still do not recall my conversion date, (big up to you guys who remember how it was “shining outside!”) my journey before I understood the gospel was a roller coaster, I often  “got saved” every time someone had a good day on the pulpit, literally! 

So when this preacher hinted about recalling the exact date I got saved, chills went down my spine. Those with photographic memories won the day. I lost (I of weak memory!) — and I still did, several times in my wobbly Christian walk thereafter. 

I bring this up, not just because I aim to belittle your Christian conversion experience but because I hope to serve it with nutrients, sound biblical nutrients. 

I bring this up because this is still a problem. namely, believers self-deceiving that we are Christian even when we are not, or basing our faith on subjective experiences in the past rooted in sentiment rather than scripture, emotions rather than eternity. 

Of course (thank God!)  in his mercy, many still come to him “in-spite” of these circumstances, but in order that exceptions become no rules —clarity about how we get saved has never been this urgent. 

And now that many we thought were believers are throwing it all away (or are soon going to)  it’s only pertinent that we go to the basics, and let God himself jumpstart again. 

The popular go-to verse in many gospel invitations is Rom 10:9, what is often emphasized however, is the confession, not the content. 

As you may have witnessed already, confessing “Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead” can also be verbatim on many microphones, it can be pronounced. 

“Walking down the aisle” a.k.a anxious bench evangelism methods too, traced back to Charles Finney have  deluded many in thinking we are Christian. 

Yet to confess that “Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead” implies you approve of all subsequent and prior New Testament content and its painting of a life lived in light of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection.

What you have in many pulpits today is a sales-pitch model that requires that you utter specific lines and get in, often soothed by a piano in the background (and perhaps an empty walkway beckoning you, dear sinner, to simply and only walk —walk upfront!)

That said, the great commission is not only clear about reaching the ends of the earth but also about “teaching them to obey all I have commanded. And the later seems to be the greatest omission in our lately customized great commission. 

As our private jets fuel to reach the ends of the earth with ‘the gospel’, we ignore the instruction right under our nose, namely, the teaching necessary to identify goats from sheep. 

Our churches then fill up with non-believers, as we soothe, comfort and entertain them —giving them no reason whatsoever to clarify how they “got in” — if at all. 

What if that (must we add?) is the exact reason for a weak Ugandan church we see today? 

What if one of those that “went out from us, but they were not of us” is the one you will see when you look in your mirror tomorrow morning? 

How about we talk about how you got saved?