JUST AS i AM

Greetings friends and neighbors. What you see...is what you get. That is what people say when they want to let people know that there are no pretenses in their lives. In 1969...what Brenda saw...was what she got. Rodney Lewis Boyd...
131 p0unds of pure, rippling, bone. Obviously...I married above my raising.
When I walked the aisle at church in the response to the request for salvation...I was already saved in Brenda's driveway...but I still walked to the song JUST AS I AM...as they sang all four verses (there are more than four verses...but they always would say all four).

JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA
BUT THAT THY BLOOD WAS SHED FOR ME
AND THAT THOU BIDD'ST ME COME TO THEE
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME

By 1970...I was living in the best of times...and the worst of times. I guess I was having a Dickens of a time. I was coming out of my shy, self-imposed shell...as I began playing in that dynamic garage band...THE BLIND DISTORTION. I came out of my room...painted entirely in black...out into the sunshine of the real world. It was in this real world that I met Brenda Sue Williams...the sweet, cute, innocent, Baptist girl. This was the BEST of times. The WORST of times was my inner battle with myself, my flesh, my own personal demons. I tried to find solace in various combinations of drugs, alcohol, various things to huff (sniff) to get high. I grew up in the Church of Christ...but was drifting away from the faith on a raft of insecurity.

Thank God for Brenda Sue Williams. She stood strong in her witness...of Jesus Christ...the Risen Saviour. She showed me the road to salvation and led me into the presence of God. I came...JUST AS i WAS.

In 1835...there was a lady by the name of Charlotte Elliot. She was the editor of CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. She wrote over 150 poems and songs...with the most famous being...JUST AS I AM. In 1949...Billy Graham...a youth evangelist with YOUTH FOR CHRIST...was holding a series of evangelistic crusades...that caught the attention of William Randolph Hearst...new mogul... sent out a memo to PUFF GRAHAM. That meant to give him favorable promotion. From that point on...the ministry took off like wildfire.

The Billy Graham Crusade...adopted the song...JUST AS I AM...as the closing number...to give people an opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. Billy would present a simplistic message about salvation...and then invite people to come down to the front and pray...and receive some
LIT...ER...A...TURE (got to say it with a drawn out Southern drawl). He would then tell them that the buses would wait (many came in buses to the crusade).

JUST AS I AM, AND WAITING NOT
TO RID MY SOUL OF ONE DARK BLOT
TO THEE WHOSE BLOOD CAN CLEANSE EACH SPOT
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." (I Peter 3:18) He is the JUST...we are the UNJUST. That is why we can come to Him...JUST as we are. He will deal with what we WILL BE...but the initial coming to Him...is JUST AS I AM.

This Rambling...is really not about a skinny kid and his religious girlfriend...and it is not about a human, fallible emissary of the Good News...IT'S ALL ABOUT HIM BABY...IT'S ALL ABOUT HIM.

JUST AS I AM, THO' TOSSED ABOUT
WITH MANY A CONFLICT, MANY A DOUBT
FIGHTINGS AND FEARS WITHIN WITHOUT
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME

"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing by the Holy Spirit." (Titus 3:5) I had to come to a place where I realized, that I could bring NOTHING to the salvation table. I came to the table JUST AS I AM.

JUST AS I AM, POOR, WRETCHED, BLIND
SIGHT, RICHES, HEALING OF THE MIND
YEA, ALL I NEED IN THE TO FIND
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal/everlasting life." (John 3:16)

"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
(John 3:17,18)

This belief that we are talking about is not just a mental assent to the historical facts that you learned in Sunday School. It is a true clinging and adhering to the truth about the DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. This is dropped into your heart...and manifest on you lips and life/conduct.

"The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." (I John 5:10-12)

The question is...WHO DO YOU HAVE. Do you have religion (man's attempts to reach God through ritual)...or do you have LIFE (God reaching out to man via the death, burial, and resurrection of the cleansing blood of the satisfactory substitute (propitiation) of Jesus Christ IN YOUR PLACE....just as you are?

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."
(I John 5:13) When someone asks you if you are a Christian...or if they ask you if you died this very minute do you know that you would go to heaven...You don't have to answer...I don't know...or...I hope so. You can answer with a certainty that you KNOW, THAT YOU KNOW, THAT YOU KNOW. Why? How can you answer with such certainty?

JUST AS I AM, THOU WILT RECEIVE
WILT WELCOME, PARDON, CLEANSE, RELIEVE
BECAUSE THY PROMISE I BELIEVE
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME...I COME

Are you ready...the buses will wait...and I have some LIT-ER-AH-TURE for you to help you grow in your new found faith.

Love and Pardoned Kisses
Rodney "The Buses Will Wait" Boyd