Last week, as my daughter Rebecca and grandson Will were driving through the country, they noticed this church sign. It is amazing how some simple phrase can create numerous thoughts and images. This one is quite profound. I wonder what your initial thoughts were when you read the sign? Maybe the hymn, ‘Amazing Grace’, or Charlotte Elliott’s ‘Just as I am, without one plea’. I grew up singing these in the Baptist Church.
A Christian man from Tennessee introduced me to this saying. “God doesn’t clean his fish ‘til he catches them”. So true, and the gospel scripture that speaks to his truly amazing grace is Romans 5.8. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. During one of my early trips to Cuba several decades ago we presented the gospel to a lady. While she trusted Christ, she also made this statement. “I have always wanted to go to church, but I never felt I would be welcomed. I didn’t have nice clothes to wear, so I just never went.” Sad, but true.
Jesus did not ask us to clean up our act before or while he was dying for our sins on the cross. Which means, we are all welcome into the body of Christ. We can come as we are, and then we get changed day by day, week by week, over a lifetime. That’s called sanctification. The act of justification does not require anything other than humble faith and trust in Christ’s sacrifice for our salvation.
Paul really emphasizes this sign’s message. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor revilers, nor drunkards, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6.9,10). Oh my gosh, there doesn’t seem to be any hope for any of us. Have you seen yourself in any of this during your lifetime? If this is true, and it is, then who can ever be saved?
Praise God that the Spirit does not stop there as he writes through Paul these glorious truths. “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” (I Cor. 6.11).
‘COME AS YOU ARE, YOU CAN CHANGE INSIDE’ Well said. A message of truth to live by!