Come As You Are

I n my three and a half decades as a pastor, only once did our church rent a billboard. It wasn’t one of those “our church is great” billboards. And we didn’t even advertise that we were a “friendly” church. I’ve always thought if a church has to announce it’s friendly, it’s probably not.

The billboard was simple. The photo showed someone wearing blue jeans and scuffed-up red sneakers. And the message on our billboard featured an undemanding invitation. Four words: Come as you are. We also added directions to our church so people could find us. The billboard attracted lots of attention. And a crowd showed up to check out our church.

I’m convinced, the invitation many people expect to hear from churches and even from God is not come as you are but come as you should be. In other words, you’d better be a respectable role model if you want a ticket in. Could it be most of us have a hard time picturing a God who wants to be close to us unless we’re saintly and well-mannered? Confined to the shadows of shame, we’re reluctant to move toward the light. And the failures in our behavior only magnify what we’ve come to believe about God and ourselves—He’s against us, so we’d better stay away from Him at all costs.

But Jesus never said, “Clean yourself up, then I’ll pay you some attention.” We’ve distorted grace when we think we can move closer to God only after we fix ourselves. Good luck with that. Even our best foot forward leaves us without a leg to stand on. God is looking for more than a moral facelift. He’s looking for an inner change of our identity—a change that can only come through Jesus. It’s our insides that need cleaning first, but we seem hard-wired to start with our outsides. Maybe we think if we look good, then we’ll be good.

But Jesus recognizes our helplessness. That’s why His offer is so loving. Just come as you are, nothing extra required. Our movement toward Jesus is not based on any virtuous contribution from us. And Jesus knows that. No wonder He says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” We’re all thirsty, but we’ll never squeeze water out of own parched hearts. Only Jesus can quench our thirst.

As the Son of God walked this planet, He issued an invitation: Come as you are. And they did. The sick and infirmed, the blind and deaf, the adulterous and scandalous, thieves and prostitutes, curious and rejected, successful and self-sufficient. They came.

Religious leaders, so disgusted by Jesus’ generous invitation, criticized Him as a “friend of sinners,” unaware they had paid Him a supreme compliment. People felt drawn to Jesus, at home with Jesus, especially those we feel should not. They understood the invitation: Come as you are.

And you and I can come too. And every other person in the world because God’s invitation still stands. It hasn’t expired. Once the enormity of His proposal sinks in, we’ll catch glimpses of how God really feels about us. God is not threatened by our skepticism. He is not unaware of our distractions. God is not surprised by our sins. He is not demoralized by our idolatry. God is not chased away by our unattractiveness. God is not quitting because of our failures.

At the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, the massive curtain hanging in the temple was torn top to bottom. That veil put boundaries on human access to God. And with the miracle of rending, access to God has been opened without the requirement of religious formality or fanfare. Now we experience God through faith in Jesus Christ. And His plea sounds like freedom, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus speaks to all because who among us has not been tired and weighed down and desperate for renewal? So just come as you are.

But could it be that the generous invitation itself provides incentive for behavioral change and progress? Once we understand that God’s grace really is amazing, and once we receive the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work of salvation free of charge, we can be left with a response of gratitude accompanied by a desire to please God by the way we live. God empowers those who come to Him in faith and dependence. And we need His power.

God’s extravagant invitation now creates a wide space for the reformation of our behavior. Not perfect behavior but growing character. That’s why coming to Jesus is both an end in itself and a means to an end. Thus, His expanded invitation might be, come as you are but don’t stay as you came. He can help us change the way we live, for good.

Jesus’ come-as-you-are invitation is indispensable to the process of our transformation. Embracing that invitation is our starting point—our initial experience of His grace. Otherwise, we might be tempted to get the cart before the horse. In other words, we might try to behave ourselves into God’s graces. Instead, without any moral housecleaning, we are invited to simply receive God’s grace by believing what He says. Come as you are.

If you think God’s gracious arrangement sounds slightly scandalous, you’d be right. Seems too good to be true. No wonder many people view God’s proposal as unlikely, preposterous, or downright offensive. The Greek word associated with God’s work through Jesus is the word, skandalon. The word is used to describe a trap or snare and also refers to an impediment that can cause one to stumble. It’s not a stretch to see that God’s gracious offer of life and forgiveness through Christ’s death is a kind of scandal. The New Testament reminds us that Jesus is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

Embrace this scandal and you’ll discover you don’t have to try harder to renovate the inside or the outside of your life to get right standing with God. And it’s not just about recounting your lengthy list of shameful disappointments. What’s more, God’s alternative is bigger than your promises to do better. We’re all sinners in need of a Savior. He’s our only hope. And the invitation is for all. Come as you are.