\nBut that Thy blood was shed for me.
\nAnd that Thou bids’t me come to Thee
\nO Lamb of God, I come.\n
by Charlotte Elliot<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I have long thought that “Just as I am” is a beautiful, inspiring hymn. While I don’t know that it was initially written to be an “invitation song,” as we call it, it has become one of the best known for that. My dad, Forrest D. Moyer, used to tell me that back when meetings were much more active and well attended (tent meetings, two-week meetings, etc.), he had more responses to that song than any other. It does tend to touch the emotions in a powerful way when someone has first been touched by Scripture to reflect upon his or her relationship with God. But this is not really about the hymn, per se.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/praying-in-sorrow-300x200.jpg\")
Photo by Samuel Martins on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n
“Just as I am” is not saying that we come to God without needing to repent or that somehow we are good enough to merit what He gives. As the hymn notes, we come to Him “to rid my soul of one dark blot,” and that when we come, God will “welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve.” This is God’s promise. Scripture is clear on the need for repentance (Acts 2:38; 3:19). What the idea does do, however, is to point to the fact that God wants us to come to him as we are – sick, hurting, broken, and in need of His healing. We cannot just fix ourselves first, then try to come to Him as if we are capable of that. There are a couple of things I think about this:<\/p>\n
You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Come<\/h2>\n
I have talked with people who have thought that they have to perfect their lives before they were worthy to come to the Lord. This is backward. If you are going to wait until you have somehow made yourself worthy, you’ll never come to Him. God doesn’t say, “Only the worthy may come.” He tells all to come, and He will forgive and heal. Then our manner of life can reflect walking worthy of the calling (Ephesians 4:1).<\/p>\n
If you think you are not good enough to come to the Lord, you are the very one who needs to come to the Lord now. The truth is that you are not good enough. Nor am I. That’s the point of God’s grace. Come just as you are and you will be changed into a new creation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come<\/em>” (II Corinthians 5:17).<\/p>\n “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance<\/em>” (Luke 5:32).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Think of the sinful woman in Luke 7:36ff. Think of the woman at the well (John 4). Think about the fact that the Lord, against the convention of the Pharisees, at with tax collectors and sinners (Matt 9:10-13).<\/p>\n Let us, then, admit that we aren’t good enough. We do not waltz up to God’s banquet table without an invitation. We are invited. We might first be found on the by-ways, but we are yet invited.<\/p>\n Let us admit, then, that that we are weak, hurting, sick, and in need of the Great Physician. There is no one whom He cannot heal, none whom He cannot re-create, none whom He cannot bless. The only thing left to get rid of, the one thing that keeps us from coming to Him, is our pride. Give that to Him, too, and He will give grace to the humble.<\/p>\n There may be many conflicts, doubts, fears within and without. Yet we can rely upon the promises of God and entrust our souls to Him who loved us and died for our sins.<\/p>\n O Lamb of God, I come!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Doy Moyer Just as I am without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me. And that Thou bids’t me come to Thee O Lamb of God, I come. by Charlotte Elliot I have long thought that “Just as I am” is a beautiful, inspiring hymn. While I don’t know that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[51,463,520,521],"class_list":["post-27172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-confession","tag-humility","tag-music","tag-songs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":63039,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/nearer-my-god-to-thee\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":0},"title":"Nearer, my God, to Thee","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 2, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Songs are magnificent. There is a reason God wants us to teach by singing, and I was reminded of this powerfully one night recently after I preached a lesson in a meeting. My lesson was called \"Come to Bethel,\" and I discussed Genesis 28, Jacob's leaving the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46799,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-song-leaders-can-pick-good-hymns\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":1},"title":"How Song Leaders Can Pick Good Hymns","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford via\u00a0His Excellent Word Over the past month or two, I've heard from a few people who were wondering why I was writing so much about good and bad hymns. What's the take-home? What's the so-what? I have an extremely strong view of congregational autonomy, so I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20180,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-can-i-find-the-hymn-who-shall-stand-before-the-king\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":2},"title":"Where can I find the hymn, “Who Shall Stand Before the King”?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good evening. I found your website this evening while looking for a Christian hymn I heard at a church of Christ YouTube website in Alabama [no longer available], and I am wondering if you know the song, the writer, and possibly in what book it was published. The song\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53005,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/hymns-and-opportunity-cost\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":3},"title":"Hymns and Opportunity Cost","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford As a rule, people have trouble understanding the importance of what they can't see. We prefer buying a big-screen TV to saving for retirement, so we benefit from ideas that help us to reckon with the unseen. Of these, one of my favorites is the concept\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50032,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/evaluating-new-songs\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":4},"title":"Evaluating New Songs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Roberts in\u00a0Abundant Life\u00a0via\u00a0Meditate on These Things For the longest time, it seemed brethren were fairly certain Sacred Selections contained just about every hymn that needed to be sung. Like it or not, that has certainly changed. Many congregations are now using some other hymnal other than Sacred Selections.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/song.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":86059,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/psalms-hymns-and-spiritual-songs\/","url_meta":{"origin":27172,"position":5},"title":"Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker via\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 1, January 2015 We know from the New Testament and can infer from later writings of church leaders that Christians of the first century did sing in their worship, but we do not know precisely what songs they sang or exactly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}God Wants You, Even If You Aren’t Good Enough<\/h2>\nIf you think that you aren’t good enough to begin with, you might have corollary feelings that God just doesn’t want you. After all, how can God want someone who has been impure? How can God love the unlovable? How can God desire to have in His fellowship any who has been evil, immoral, and so stained by the world? What hope can I possibly have for God to want to do anything with me?
\nLet’s clear this up now: God wants you! He wants you if you have been stained, immoral, and evil. He wants you when you are broken and sick. He wants you when you have hit bottom and have nowhere else to turn. He wants the drug addict, the alcoholic, and the sexually immoral. Come to Him just as you are in your broken state …\u00a0And you will be changed: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God<\/em>” (I Corinthians 6:11).\n