Come As You Are
One of the things we say all the time at Valley View is “Come as you are so you don’t have to stay as you are.” You don’t have to get cleaned up before taking a shower. Jesus doesn’t expect us to come to Him after we get things straightened out. He loves us now, as we are, and He wants us to come to Him as we are so that through His power working in us we can change and grow.
Henri Nouwen in his book on the story of the Prodigal Son says it this way, “It often seems to me that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. I need light, but that light has to conquer my darkness, and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself. I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my anger. I cannot bring myself home nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, yes, pray for it. But my true freedom I cannot fabricate for myself. That must be given to me. I am lost. I must be found and brought home by the shepherd who goes out to me.”
When the prodigal returns to the father, broken, hungry, poor, homeless, destitute, the father receives him with open and loving arms.
There’s another powerful picture of this in Mark 10, where a rich man comes to Him, asking about eternal life. This man ends up walking away from Jesus, saddened, because Jesus called him to sell everything and follow Him. But notice what it says in verse 21: “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Jesus looked at him, He looked into his heart, He considered who this man was, his idols, his loves, his hang ups, and even as he saw him that way, He loved him. He loved him as he was, and at the same time He called him to grow, to follow Jesus, to give up the things that had become his first love, his possessions and his own ability to keep the law.
I may not know what is going on in your life, what are your first loves, your challenges, your insecurities, your deep hurts and burdens, but the one thing I want you to hear today is that no matter where you are, you are loved by Jesus. He loves you as you are. He wants you to daily turn to Him and depend on Him to grow and change into the person He created you to be. It’s a beautiful thing to know we no longer have to pretend to have it all figured out, or have it all together. Instead we can surrender and come to Him as we are. That is where we find immense freedom. May God grant you much freedom and peace today!
Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz