Come Just As You Are?

The phrase "come as you are" is a phrase that has become synonymous with the Christian faith.  It is a phrase that is heralded to the downtrodden, the prodigal, and the lost.  It is a phrase that means, "It doesn't matter where you have been, or who you have been, Jesus accepts you just as you are."  It is a phrase that generally reaches out to those who have led a life that is evidentially contrary to what Jesus would expect.  It is a phrase that you have most likely found yourself personally accepting.

There have been a couple popular songs written about the phrase, "Come just as you are." One of these songs is specifically entitled, Come Just As You Are, and the chorus sings,

Come just as you are,
Hear the Spirit call,
Come see, Come receive,
Come and live, forever

Another, more recent, song entitled Come, Now is the Time to Worship, says,

Come, now is the time to worship,
Come, now is the time to give your heart,
Come, just as you are to worship,
Come, just as you are before your God

While the idea of coming just as you are indeed holds value, there are some very important truths that are often left out of the phrase that make it more accurate.  Moreover, there are some important observations that need to be seen when utilizing or singing this phrase.

1.  Salvifically, We Do Not Come, But We Are Found Just As We Are

Paul writes in Romans 5:12, "Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."  This essentially means that everyone is conceived and born into this world as sinners, separated from God.  This is what most refer to as "original sin."  This idea of original sin is advanced in Romans 3:10 when Paul says that our sin leaves us utterly depraved, with no desire to search for God. This means that before God we are "just as we are," which is unrighteous, sinful, and depraved.  This also means that the phrase "come just as you are" is a bit misleading because although those who come to God through Jesus all come "just as we are," we really don't come at all.  It is instead God who comes.  It is God who has been coming and finding us where we are since the Garden of Eden, when He walked in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8), at the Tower of Babel when we disobeyed His command to fill the earth (Genesis 11), and ultimately through His Son Jesus Christ when we were dead in our sins (John 3:16).  

God has been coming and finding us just as we are since the beginning of time.

2.  Worshipfully, Before We Come Just As We Are, We Must Adjust What We Are

The most popular use of "coming just as you are" is used in the context of worship and not salvation.  The idea is that regardless of how you spent your week, you can still "come as you are before your God."  This, however, is a very dangerous endeavor.

Consider for a moment a couple named Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5).  The couple sold a piece of land but held back a portion of the funds in their offering to God.  The text says that the result was that Ananias "fell down and breathed his last" (Acts 5:5).  Sapphira suffered the same fate (Acts 5:10).  Ananias and Sapphira didn't die because they didn't give God their entire paycheck.  They died because they essentially came before God unprepared for worship (i.e., they "came just as they were").  The context of their sin is seen in Acts 4 when the church was of "one heart and soul" and not "one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them" (32).  Ananias and Sapphira wanted others to think that they were part of this one heart and soul, but didn't actually want to be of the one heart and soul.  They "came just as they were," and it was the death of them.

The Old Testament conveys the same message.  The High Priest, prior to worship, needed to offer up sacrifices "for his own sins and then for the sins of the people" (Hebrews 7:27).  The idea is that instead of coming to God just as he was, he prepared himself to stand before the presence of God.

The solution to this is found in Paul's instructions to participating in the Lord's Supper.  Paul writes that "a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28).  

Before we "come just as we are before our God," perhaps we should examine ourselves in order that may come before God for worship.

3.  Come Just As You Are, But Expect to Be Changed

We live in what is known as the "post-modern" world.  The post-modern world questions truth which breeds compromise and tolerance.  All beliefs are welcomed, accepted, and meaningful, but no single belief takes precedence over another.  In other words, Jesus may work for one person, but not for another, and that is okay.  This worldview, however, simply does not jive logically, and especially with the faith that we call Christianity (Jesus is either "the way" or not "the way," not "a way").  

Although this is the case, there are some who attempt to combine post-modernism and Christianity, and the result is phrases such as "come just as you are."  It sounds welcoming and forgiving, but it isn't necessarily biblical because it is an incomplete sentence.  A better way of stating the phrase would be, "Come just as you are, but expect to be changed."

In the book, Jim and Casper Go to Church, (a book in which a believer and non-believer go around the nation visiting and evaluating churches), Jim and Casper visit a church in Portland, Oregon called "The Bridge."  The title of the chapter is, Come As You Really Are.  The chapter is about how "The Bridge" is a church designed for those who have become disenchanted with the "normal" way of doing church, and so it accepts the "outcasts" who can come as they "really are," as opposed to the rest of us are just "as we are." These "outcasts" have tattoos, smoke at the entryway, and talk during the "sermon," among other things.  Jim and Casper seem to really like this church because it accepts people "just as they are," while other churches allegedly use the phrase without truly meaning it. 

The problem with this is that becoming a follower of Jesus is more than just "being who you are," because "being who you are" means being a wretched sinner. God calls us to leave our sinful ways behind and to be "conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29). Granted, this takes time.  It is not expected (or even possible) that we immediately become a perfect person upon becoming a Christian, but there is a process that should begin to take place in us called sanctification.  This process does not mean that an individual is not saved if he has a tattoo, smokes, or talks during the sermon (these are but trivial behaviors included in Jim and Casper's book).  It does mean, however, that when a person becomes a follower of Jesus that he begins to act more like Jesus, and Jesus lived contrary to the world.  He was not indistinguishable from it.  

Sanctification is essentially the evidence that we have been "born again" (John 3).  We have been found just as we are, but God begins to change us to the likeness of His Son Jesus Christ.

Coming just as you are is essentially impossible, but by the grace of God He finds you where you are, changes your heart, and calls you to become something holy and acceptable to stand in His presence for all of eternity.