Just as you are, nothing more needed

As the hour turns late, darkness envelopes a sleepless night as chili-cheese nachos topped with jalapenos do their work on the digestive system.

I was encouraged by a sister in Christ, the one who fed me those nachos, to use that time for Him. The only thoughts that filled my conscience during that time was that I was not worthy to speak the name of Christ, let alone write about his abundant riches. Inside, the still, small voice called out, “Come to me just as you are,” recalling the words of the great hymn by Charlotte Elliott.

The simple and haunting words of the hymn reminded me of my own lowliness and the war raging inside all of us who claim the name of Christ, as noted by the apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-20, 24-25 “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it…

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

This battle Paul spoke of rages interminably inside the confines of our minds and our spirits. While even if our heart belongs to Jesus, Satan wages an all-consuming battle against us and at times it may seem we are fighting a war that cannot be won. We look at our tree and see it is fruitless and we deem ourselves disappointments and failures, to Christ and our Heavenly Father and to those around us looking to us to see that glimmer of the Blessed Hope that gave us life.

As the tears of failure and disappointment flow down our faces, Jesus stares at us from the cross and beckons us to him; it is not a command, but an invitation. It is an invitation to pour all the doubts and fears upon the foot of the cross and allow him to take control of the battle raging inside us — a battle he has already won.

For those of us who have been washed in Christ’s blood, that is how salvation came to us; but too often we forget Christ and the cross and we walk away from Calvary thinking everything will be fine from then on, but our accepting what Jesus did for us on the cross is only the opening refrain on our journey to our eternal existence in the presence of God and Jesus.

In this broken state, we must remain with Jesus, not going off on our own with prideful zeal as the Pharisees did, proclaiming their superiority; but within this broken, and helpless state, God creates in us a humble heart capable of not just telling, but showing a lost world the riches of God’s love.

There are no great works required of us, we don’t have to teach Sunday School or go on foreign missions, but we must decide to go to and abide with Jesus.

“All that the father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” — John 6:36

Let’s call this the “great requirement.” The great requirement is that we come to Christ, and we have this assurance from our Lord that if we come to him in faith he will not brush us aside, but welcome us with his healing hands. As he touches us with his nail-scarred hands he imparts life into us, a life that will never be separated from us.

For many of us, that is the extent of our coming to Christ, as we said, we soon go on our way, but if we would just remain with Jesus this crumbled and listless life would have a meaning and purpose beyond our understanding, if only we would come to him.

In Ms. Elliott’s hymn, “Just as I am,” we see the picture of a person with nothing to offer, seemingly broken beyond repair, but what we don’t realize is that is the only way to come to Jesus.

The story behind the song is as heart wrenching as the song. Ms. Elliott’ father and brother were both notable pastors in their corner of England in the early 1800s, yet, at the time the young Charlotte didn’t share their same dedication to Christ, nevertheless, the Elliott home was a meeting place for many a traveling clergyman and quite often Ms. Elliott would engage them in conversation. One such man was Dr. Cesar Malan, of Geneva. Presumably over a meal, Dr. Malan began talking about his faith and he pointed a question to Ms. Elliott.

Ms. Elliott suffered constantly with poor health and was often in severe pain, which made her irritable at times, which may have been the case this time. In any event, she took offense to Dr. Malan’s question about her own faith. Dr. Malan offered to go no further on the subject, and told the young woman he would pray for her to give her heart to Christ and then use the talents given to her by God to enter a life of service to him.

A couple of weeks later, once again miserable, but for different reasons, Ms. Elliott came back to Dr. Milan and posed a question she had to so many pastors about how to come closer to Christ. They gave her the answer to pray more, do more good works, live a more pious life, all of which never seemed right to young Charlotte.

Dr. Malan cut through all of that when Ms. Elliott told him, “I am miserable. I want to be saved. I want to come to Jesus; but I don’t know how.”

He responded to her by saying, “You have only to come to him just as you are.”

The words penetrated the veil covering her heart and she gave her heart to Jesus on that night, but life and the world has a way of trying to tug us a way from our devotion to Christ. As noted, Ms. Elliott was practically an invalid and felt useless in her service to her savior. She often had doubts that ripped at her soul. Such was happening in her life in 1834 as those around her readied for a church bazaar, and the beautiful story is retold in Knapp’s “Who wrote our Hymns.”

"Ill health still beset her. Besides its general trying influence on the spirit, it often caused her the peculiar pain of a seeming uselessness in her life, while the circle round her was full of unresting serviceableness for God. Such a time of trial marked the year 1834, when she was 45 years old and was living in Westfield Lodge, Brighton,” the book noted.

The night before the bazaar Ms. Elliott was unable to sleep or rest. The book notes a sense that everything before her was an illusion, nothing but myths to be dispelled. Instead of giving into her thoughts and fears, with the help of the Holy Spirit, she determined to conquer the doubts. What Ms. Elliott did was write down the formula for her faith in verse form, the gospel of pardon and peace and how that “even now” she was accepted in the Beloved kingdom of her savior.

What sprang from her pen and onto the paper was the hymn “Just as I am.”

Through her sense of uselessness, the light of Christ sprang forth from her, reaching untold millions with her simple verses of testimony.

Some years later Ms. Elliott’s brother, the Rev. H.V. Elliott, noted, “In the course of a long ministry I hope I have been permitted to see some fruit of my labours; but I feel far more has been done by the single hymn of my sister’s.”

In this famous hymn, too often we only hear the first couple of verses during the invitational part of the service, as no one responds to the pastor’s invitation to come before the altar and offer a life to Christ, the song does not go on to reveal its beautiful prose to us. In the fifth stanza of the song it tells us the simplicity of the gospel of Christ.

“Just as I am — Thou wilt receive

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;

Because thy promise I believe,

— O Lamb of God, I come!”

We too are accepted into the Beloved kingdom of our Savior if we believe on the promise fulfilled at the cross. Even though the world rejects us and spits us out, Jesus never will if we come to him — just come to him, now and for always.