September 10, 2019

Jesus Takes You as You Are

A compilation

Audio length: 10:28
Download Audio (9.5MB)

We live in a world of fakes. We live in a world of filters. We live in a world where we can control what people see of us on social media. We live in a world where people air all their garbage and where others seem to live perfect lives.

So my question: What does Jesus love?

I have days like anyone else. I have a past like anyone else. I have days where I feel like God loves me but He doesn’t like me right now. So I try to hide. Sometimes hiding comes in the form of “frontin’.” See, frontin’ is what old ‘gangster’ Jason used to say to sound cool. By that I mean, you just put up this front that isn’t really you. I try to be perfect to get God to like me again. If I have all of God’s love, how can I get Him to like me more?...

I don’t believe you need to be Billy Graham to have the Father pleased with your life. You may die with no notoriety on earth, but you can die with the God of this universe saying “WELL DONE.” So stop faking or frontin’, just be you and walk in simple obedience. …

Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Love is to love someone at their worst, guiding them towards their best. God loved us at our worst. We were in our sin when the God of this universe sent Jesus to die. Jesus paid the price of our sin knowing EVERYTHING you’ve done and will do…

God loved you at your worst and is still in the process of guiding you towards Himself. You find your best self when you move closer to Jesus.

Stop frontin’, stop faking, stop trying to earn acceptance. If He loved you at your worst, He loves you RIGHT NOW just the same. Is He OK with the garbage in your life? Certainly not. But He loves you. Let the love of Christ motivate a better you.

If you’re loved at your worst, you can be real. He knows it all, so stop frontin’, hiding, and faking. He loves you. The real you. All of you.—Jason Coache¹

While the concept of “come as you are,” if understood correctly, is biblical, the precise phrase “come as you are” is not found in Scripture. But, again, the Bible does have a variety of verses that imply the same message, based on God’s amazing grace.

In Joel 2:32, where the prophet is declaring the terrible judgments of the Day of the Lord, God’s offer of deliverance is open to “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord.” In Isaiah 1:18, God offers the invitation to come, though your sins are as scarlet, and He will make them white as snow. Revelation 22:17 is an open invitation: “Come! Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” In these and other verses, the clear implication is that, even though we are sinners, God desires us to come to Him as we are, so that He can cleanse us.

As for the meaning and application of the phrase, we can go to the examples of how Jesus dealt with the sinners He encountered. Sometimes well-meaning Christians tell people that they have to “clean up their lives” before God will accept them, but that is not what we see in Scripture. When speaking to the woman at the well who was living with a man she was not married to,² Jesus addressed the fact of her sin, then offered her the salvation she needed. Again, when the woman caught in adultery³ was brought before Jesus, He told her, “Go, and sin no more.” The sin was never excused or ignored, but forgiveness was offered to anyone who recognized his sin and was willing to confess and forsake it. God certainly expects us to leave our sin, but that comes as a part of our salvation, not as a prerequisite. We are not able to clean ourselves up without God’s help…

God is amazing, gracious, loving, and forgiving, so He calls us to salvation, even though we don’t deserve it. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,⁴ making it possible for us to receive forgiveness. He requires us to confess and forsake our sins when we come to Him, but He receives us just as we are, then begins to change us as we submit to Him in obedience.—From gotquestions.org⁵

We don’t come to God in our own worthiness! Oh, if that would just sink into your heart, that it’s only in the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the cross of Calvary that gives you the right to come with boldness. You can come with boldness because it isn’t any worthiness of your own!

Our sins are forgiven us because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bore them in His own body on the tree.⁶ The bloodstained cross is the moral warrant on which we base this right to come boldly and our assurance that our sins are forgiven.

“Seeing then that we have a high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”⁷

It’s wonderfully inspiring to me to remember constantly that the cross is a finished transaction. The promise is based on blood already shed and on a transaction already completed, not on anything we can do or say or any works of ours or any worth in ourselves. We are unworthy. But the vilest sinner bowing at the foot of the cross of Calvary and claiming the cleansing power of the blood can know the peace of total remission of all and every sin, and then approach God the heavenly Father boldly through the blood of Christ, through the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. There isn’t any other way, dearly beloved, of approaching the heavenly Father except through His worthiness.—Virginia Brandt Berg

Published on Anchor September 2019. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky.
Music by Michael Dooley.

¹ https://wellspring.one/blog/the-real-you.

² John 4:1–26.

³ John 8:1–11.

⁴ Romans 5:8.

⁵ https://www.gotquestions.org/come-as-you-are.html.

⁶ 1 Peter 2:24.

⁷ Hebrews 4:14–16.

Posted in: audio, compilation, encouragement, grace, love, relationship with the lord, salvation