Just As You Are

Just As You Are

Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

   A lady named Miss Charlotte Elliott was vi¬sit¬ing some friends in the West End of Lon¬don to have dinner with them and other guests.  One of those guests was a famous minister named Cé¬sar Ma¬lan.  While seat¬ed around the table, the min¬is¬ter said he hoped that she was a Christ¬ian.  She took of¬fense at this, and re¬plied that she would ra¬ther not dis¬cuss that quest¬ion.  Dr. Ma¬lan said that he was sor¬ry if had of-fend¬ed her, that he al¬ways liked to speak a word for his Mas¬ter, and that he hoped that the young la¬dy would some day be¬come a Christian.  By chance, they met again three weeks later at the home of a mu¬tu¬al friend.  Miss Ell¬i¬ott told the min¬is¬ter that ev¬er since he had spok¬en to her she had been try¬ing to find her Sav¬ior.  Would he tell her how to come to Christ, now?  “Just come to him as you are,” Dr. Ma¬lan said.  She did this and went away re¬joic¬ing.  Shortly af¬ter¬ this, she wrote this hymn about what he told her.
   This hymn is nearly always used as an invitational to come to Christ for salvation.  This song was playing the day I answered an invitation to come forward, but sadly the church elder there to meet me was more concerned with “all my sins” and “giving them to Jesus” than with my coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.  It was more than a year before I actually came to Christ and asked Him into my heart.  The minister who talked to me had a vastly different approach.  We talked for a few hours and then he said he had to go home to get to bed.  He left me sitting in the church office at three in the morning.  I knew I was lost and knew I needed Christ to be in control of my life.  But coming to Him had always been my sticking point.  But the pastor had given me some crucial advice.  His advice was much like Miss Elliot received, “Just come to Christ as you are.”
   I was hurting, angry, willful, confused about life, and a whole lot more.  But when I bowed my head and came to Him humbly I experienced His grace.  All my excuses and all my emotional baggage and all my confusion just dropped off me.  The church elder who told me I needed to do so many things before I would be saved had it so wrong.  Yes, I was guilty in God’s sight but I was guilty of not believing in the saving work Christ had done at the cross.  When I finally figured out I was never going to figure it all out, I brought all my confusion to Him and discovered it wasn’t something I was supposed to understand.  How can an unsaved heart understand the love of God?  All I was sure of was that He was ready to take me flaws, confusion, hurts and all.
   But this song is not just an invitational song to give at an alter call for salvation.  This message is still one I need in my life.  I can make my life so complicated it’s hard to keep up.  I can get myself off on some doctrinal tangent and forget how to find my way back to worshipping Christ.  So many things I can do wrong, but this message is a simple answer I can use in my life.
   “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy was shed for me.”  When all is said and done, the really important thing in life is that His blood was shed for my sins.  I was not so far gone as to be lost beyond salvation.  His blood could and did wash me clean.  And His blood was never lost its power!  I can still depend on its cleansing power if I fail in life and sin.  And one day I will stand before Him and that blood will be my pass into eternal life with God.
   “and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”  This was all His idea right from the beginning.  He knew I would fail and have needs and be confused and hurt and angry.  He was not surprised that I needed to call on Him and still need to call on Him daily.  I am still prone to failure and confusion and all that, but now I know where to go when it happens.  I know that no matter what I do, He is still waiting for me with open arms.  His love and His grace are still there and will never run out.


Stephen Cram                            August 26, 2012                    Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8


       

The Ephesian Warning

The Ephesian Warning

Revelation 2:5a
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works

    The Ephesian church received a warning about leaving their first love.  The advice He gave them is advice all of us need to follow at some point in our Christian walk.  The advice is valid for individuals as well as congregations.  I call it the Three Rs of renewal.
   The first R is Remember.  To find something lost, you must look for it because you don’t actually know where you lost it.  But if you leave something, you can find it by remembering where you left it.  The first step in restoration is to remember.  Remember when you were at peace with God.  Remember when you were in love with Christ.  When the Prodigal Son was in the pigpen eating the pig’s food, the first step in his restoration was remembering what life was like back in his father’s home.  This is always the first step in getting back to where we should be with the Lord.  If you find yourself longing for a better relationship with the Lord, remember when you first came to Him and how you felt.
   The second R is Repent.  Repent is not a command to feel sorry.  It’s not a command to feel anything.  It means to stop going in the direction you’re going in and change your direction to go a different way.  It is an appeal for a change of attitude and conduct.
   The third R is Return.  Return to do the first works.  This means to go back to the basics, to the very first things that you did when you first fell in love with Jesus.
   What are the first works?  The wonder of spending time in His Word.  The closeness you felt when you spent time in prayer.  The joy of getting together with other Christians.  The excitement in telling others about Jesus.  The innocence of simple worship.
   The enemy does a masterful job in causing us to feel dissatisfied with these simple things in our lives.  We find ourselves running after new and different methods and programs.  We count numbers and look around at other churches in jealousy.  We plan on how to make Christ more “accessible” to the unsaved.  We get so busy we don’t stop and enjoy being in His Presence.  What we see in the church today is a loveless, busy, program-laden club.  We become the Church of Ichabod, where the glory has departed (1 Samuel 4:21).
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
   He who has an ear: This qualifies everyone, at least everyone who will stop and listen to God calling to us.  This warning was written to the church at Ephesus, but is also there as a warning to us today.  Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches:
   The Lord ended His message to the Ephesians with a promise.
To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.
   This promise to the one who overcomes, but what does this overcomer overcome?  We usually think of overcoming in dramatic terms of overcoming sin and a matter of spiritual warfare, but here Jesus seems to be speaking of the overcoming of the coldness of their hearts and lack of love marked by the leaving of their first love.  Is it possible to rekindle a fire in a burned-out heart?  Yes, it is.  Is it possible to fall in love with One Who you have left and wandered away from?  Yes, it is.  Is it possible to find that joy you used to feel in His Presence?  Yes, it is.  I can speak not only from personal experience, but also from hearing testimony from many others who have grown cold then had a spiritual renewal.
   If, while reading this, you remembered a time when you were truly happy in God’s Presence and you miss it, you have already taken the first step.  You are remembering a time when you were in love with Christ and nothing else mattered.  The rest is not impossible to achieve, but it is hard on the pride.



Stephen Cram                           August 19, 2012                 Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8

Failure of a Great Work

Failure of a Great Work

Revelation 2: 2-5a

2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 

3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 

4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 

5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, 

   Paul assigned Timothy to watch over the church that was growing in the important cosmopolitan city of Ephesus.  From church history and judging from the content of the epistle written to them by Paul, the church was growing and serving God.  He wrote some strong spiritual truths to them - they must have been doing well and were maturing as they could handle hearing more meatier teachings. 

   It was a large church, and aside from two visits from Paul it also enjoyed the ministry of Timothy and also Priscilla and Aquila visited there and Apollos preached there.  Later, the aging Disciple John the Beloved moved there and there is a church legend that Mary, the mother of Jesus lived her last years there. 

   The Ephesian church received more than one letter.  Paul wrote the Epistle of Ephesians, and also the Epistle to the Galatians, of which Ephesus was one of the seven principle churches.  Galatia was the name of an area of the highlands in what is today the nation of Turkey.  About 20 years after the Epistle to the Ephesians was written, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch also wrote a letter to the church there. 

   When John received his revelation of the glorified Lord and was told to write to seven churches, the first one mentioned was John’s own church in Ephesus.  And what the Lord said began well.  The Lord said He knew that they were faithful and busy doing the work and they were diligent about false teachers and all that a church could want to hear.  If I were reading this letter for the first time, I’d be downright proud of my church at this point.  But then the Lord gives them a reality check prefaced by the word “nevertheless.”  Nevertheless means “In spite of that; notwithstanding; all the same; but.”  The Lord says, “Nevertheless, I have this against you.”  All the good in the Ephesian church did would not cancel out the bad Jesus is about to reveal.  He said He has something against them.  “You have left your first love.”

   This is a sin of omission that all of us, I repeat – all of us, have been guilty of or are guilty of.  Despite all the good in the church, there is often something seriously wrong.  We have left our first love.  We’ve once had a love with the Lord, a special love just between us, but now it’s not there anymore.  And He didn’t say the Ephesians “lost” their first love, but that they “left” their first love.  This is a serious matter.  Something can be lost by accident.  You can lose something and not mean to lose it.  But if you leave something, it’s no longer an accident, it’s an “on purpose.”  I’ve talked to friends estranged from their spouses and have heard things like, “it’s really no one’s fault, we just don’t get along,” and “we just grew apart.” That’s tragic when it’s a husband and wife, but it’s a dangerous mistake when it’s between you and the Lord.  The one good thing about this situation is that if you lost something, you don’t know where to go to find it again, but when you leave something, you know where to go to get it back again.   

   The Ephesian church was a working church.  Sometimes a focus on the work turns it into a labor and it becomes drudgery.  Working for Jesus becomes all-consuming and we go through the motions without any of it touching our hearts.  The church at Ephesus was doctrinally OK, but orthodoxy that has no love is dead orthodoxy.

   History does not reveal much about the church at Ephesus after this final letter.  We have no way of knowing whether they corrected their problem and later were poisoned by some false doctrine; or whether they just withered on the vine and fell away.  What we do know is that sometime during the second century the church died.  

   There is a warning here that we cannot afford to take lightly.  If the church at Ephesus can fail, any church can fail.  If they left their first love, we need to examine our hearts and our relationship with Jesus.  “Nevertheless” is not a word I want to hear at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

Stephen Cram                          August 12, 2012                 Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8 

I Urge You – Remain in Ephesus

I Urge You – Remain in Ephesus

1 Timothy 1:3

3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 

4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. 

   Timothy, like Titus, was a young man who Paul the Apostle called a son in the faith.  Here in the very beginning of his letter to Timothy Paul is telling him to remain in Ephesus.  By accounts I’ve read about the city, it wasn't easy to serve the Lord there.  It was one of the great cities of the ancient world, and was noted as a religious and economic center.  Ephesus had the famous temple to the goddess Diana and a thriving banking industry.  There were many things, both spiritual and material, that would make it difficult for a pastor to stand strong for the true message of the Gospel. 

   Even knowing that Timothy had a tough job to do and a tough town to do it in, Paul wanted him to "remain in Ephesus."   He also charged Timothy with the same basic instructions he gave to Titus.  The church there was a new church, and already opposition had been sent to interfere with the Gospel message.  The enemy does not waste time; he goes in for the kill quickly.  Living in NH in the 70’s, I witnessed the birth and death of a couple of churches.  They started with fire and determination and died under opposition and oppression.  The key weakness in both was the lack of a leader called of God to be a Pastor. 

   Paul did not want the church he had founded in Ephesus to face opposition without a Godly pastor to lead them.  Timothy had traveled with Paul for a while and he knew Paul’s heart and had sat under Paul’s teachings.  He was a young man with a good testimony and Paul entrusted him with the big job of coming against the enemy’s work in Ephesus and leading the church on the right path. 

   But reading this I get the impression, and this is my opinion, that Timothy must have wanted to leave Ephesus.  Paul is not telling Timothy in these verse to “go to” Ephesus, he is urging Timothy to “remain in” Ephesus.  Paul would not have said this to Timothy if there were not some kind of pressure for him to leave.  Something was pushing Timothy to give up, to resign, and to walk away from his charge to lead this church.  Paul is urging Timothy to resist the call to leave and to get back to work and bring the truth to these people who needed to hear it. 

   God will allow us to be in difficult situations at times.  We must set our minds to meet the challenge and never to entertain the thought that it’s OK to quit.  Quitting is an easy out but it becomes habit-forming.  Quit once and it’s much easier to quit the second time.  There will be opposition from the enemy any time you set out to do a work in God’s name.  Just preach the Gospel and you can see the dark clouds gather overhead and a storm will break on your life.  But you must determine to stand firm right from the start and never let thoughts of quitting enter your plans. 

   There is a story, not confirmed, that a newspaper ran the following, believed to have been written by Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.

Honor and recognition in case of success."

The ad is said to have received more than 5000 responses.  They were willing to give their lives to a big, difficult mission to follow a great leader calling to them.

   Timothy had a tough job, and we also face a tough job.  Sharing the Gospel is a job assigned to every Christian.  And the enemy does not want you to carry out your mission.  You can expect opposition whenever you tell a lost soul the Gospel.  You can expect that you will anger someone and you will be called things and/or accused of things.  But it is a certainty that a person who is unsaved and who never hears the Gospel will not come to salvation.  And that is the thing to keep in mind when you hesitate to speak out to an unsaved friend or family member.  If I don’t talk to them, will they get another chance?  I watch the news and there are stories of people who were going somewhere but their lives ended abruptly. 

   Has God called you to stay faithful through a difficult situation, when you would prefer to escape?  Has this been one of "those" weeks?  You can find the strength to remain where God wants you to remain, if you look for the strength not in yourself, but in God.

Stephen Cram                            August 5, 2012                    Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8