Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)]
Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidd’st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.Just as I am, and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot,
to thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
As we came together in worship, each of us bringing the Lord our own private sins, sorrows, doubts, and fears, the hymn’s words, “Just as I am… I come, I come,” seemed a fitting way to start the service. Because its heartfelt words are so relatable, Just as I Am is one of my favorite hymns. Curious about its origin, I learned that its words were written by a Victorian hymn writer named Charlotte Elliott. The daughter of an evangelist, she suffered a serious illness at the age of 32 that left her an invalid for the rest of her life. Angry about what she perceived as uselessness because of her disability, Elliott became severely depressed and spiritually lost. After a visiting minister counseled her to come to Jesus, she asked how she could come to Him when all she had was her anger, sadness, questions, and broken body. The clergyman’s response was simple: “Come to Him just as you are.” Although she gave her life to Christ at that time, she continued to be plagued by depression.
After a sleepless night filled with doubts and feelings of uselessness, the distressed woman “gathered up in her soul the grand certainties, not of her emotions, but of her salvation: her Lord, His power, His promise.” [Lutheran Hymnal Handbook] Remembering the words said to her twelve years earlier, “Come to Him just as you are,” Charlotte Elliott wrote the hymn we know as Just as I Am. By the grace of God, this woman who came to Jesus just as she was (with broken body and troubled heart) ended up writing about 150 hymns, many of which as still in use today!
Not a one of us comes to the Lord without sin, doubts, pain, scars, weaknesses, and a whole lot of troubling history. John and James had big egos and short-tempers, the Pharisee Saul/Paul hated Gentiles and persecuted Christians, and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons! For twelve years, the woman with the bleeding disorder was considered unclean and the leper who knelt before Jesus literally was untouchable. Nicodemus was so afraid that he came with his questions in the dark of night. The woman at the well lived with a man not her husband and had been used and discarded by several men before that! The blind men who came to Jesus were nothing but beggars and Zacchaeus and Matthew came to Him as corrupt collaborators. We don’t know the sins of the man hanging on the cross beside Jesus and we can only imagine the baggage carried by the prostitute who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Yet, they all came to Jesus just as they were and He welcomed them all!
It’s never been a question of whether or not we’re good enough to come to Jesus—none of us are worthy to stand in His presence. Nevertheless, “Come as you are!” is how He invites us to come to Him. In spite of our flaws, sins, doubts, anger, depression, limitations, illness, regrets, or checkered pasts, Jesus loves us as we are and welcomes us with open arms. But, while He welcomes us as sinners, He doesn’t welcome our sins. Our Lord expects us to leave them behind with all the other worldly baggage that weighs us down. It is when we humbly and repentantly come to Jesus just as we are that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He will make of us what we should be!
Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.Just as I am, thou wilt receive,
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
[Charlotte Elliott (1835)]
The story is told of a Russian rabbi standing on a hillside with his student. As they looked down at the valley below, the men watched in horror as a band of Cossacks charged into their village. They heard the townspeople’s terrified screams as they were slaughtered and saw the smoke rise as their village was set afire by the marauders. With tears in his eyes, the rabbi looked up to heaven and cried, “If only I were God!” His troubled student asked what the rabbi would do differently if he were God. “Nothing,” replied the old man, “but then I would understand why!”
As a history of Israel’s disobedience, idolatry, and moral depravity, Judges is one of the saddest books of the Bible; it also is one of the bloodiest and violent. After starting well with war against the pagan tribes of Canaan, it ends with civil war and Israelite killing Israelite. While some tribes obediently drove the pagan people from their land, others found it easier to tolerate sin than fully eradicate it. By the time of Gideon, altars to Baal and Asherah poles had been erected and people wanted to kill Gideon for destroying them. It only went from bad to worse after Samson. Micah sinfully set up a shrine for his idols, wrongly fashioned a priestly ephod, ordained his son into the priesthood, and then purchased the services of a Levite as his personal priest! After the Danites stole his idols, ephod, and Levite, they set up their own idolatrous shrine with the Levite as priest. Did no one remember God’s laws given to them by Moses that specifically covered priests, ephods, Levites, and the worship of idols?
Devotions of the Heart 