”Just as I am…” Udskriv
Skrevet af Jørn Nielsen   
Lørdag, 20. juni 2020 12:29

We are sometimes faced with a winner or “victorious” brand of Christianity which I´m not comfortable with.  It sounds good on the surface but behind its overexcited facade it´ empty and self-centered

It has very little consciousness of sinfulness and easily finds it way to popular platforms which it´s drowned in “a happy noise”, but something is lacking, - the man Jesus portrayed in Luke 18:13 is lacking.

He prayed, “God be merciful to me, a sinner” or as it says in the original Greek, “Be propitious to me the sinner.”  In other words Jesus gave us a parable of a man that stands naked and lost before God pleading His propitiation, i.e. the blood of Calvary.

I remember in my young days as a student with New Tribes Mission.  An outstanding missionary and leader, Ken Finney, came along to teach about the cross.  He said,  “We never come to the place where we don´t need to sing “Just as I am without one plea…”.  I was surprised that a man  so mightily used by God could speak in such humble terms.  But he did.

Do you believe in being filled with the Spirit?  Of course you do.  John the Baptist was indeed “filled with the Holy Spirit even from His mother´s womb” (Luke 1:15), but that made him little and abased before Jesus to whom he confessed his sinfulness in Mt. 3:14.

This is still true.  It doesn´t make the saved sinner timid and down-heartened, on the contrary it makes him/her bold in Christ.  On that I like to dwell, and a Christ centered testimony I want to give even now on the verge of the eternity.  Blunders we do make along the way, but we are still under the blood.  “The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  Notice the holy apostle includes himself with the little word “us”.

Do you know of any other remedy?  I don´t at least.

March 3, 2020 - jn