FRED and Jane were driving along a busy highway. It was past noon and they were getting hungry. Ahead of them Jane spotted an attractive restaurant.
“How about stopping here, Fred?” she said to her husband.
“We can’t go in there, Jane! Look at us!” he said, and drove on, right past the inviting place.
Jane shrugged her shoulders. “I see what you mean. I’m looking at us,” she replied, “and we are a sight.” But there was disappointment in her voice.
Driving across the country, the young couple had been unable to find a vacancy in a hotel the night before. By afternoon, they were wrinkled and untidy. The travel stains were showing.
“You’re right, Fred,” Jane agreed. “We would have felt kind of ill at ease in that place. But I’m awful hungry — and not just for a hot dog or hamburger. I would like a meal in a nice place.”
They drove on, passing places that didn’t appeal to them — and some that did.
Then, pointing off to the side, Jane cried, “Look, Fred, over there. That big sign. Slow down a minute so I can read it. That’s what I thought it said: ‘Come just as you are.’ Good. That’s for us, even if we did sleep in our clothes last night.”
“It does look nice.” Fred slowed to a stop and pulled up by the red and white painted, old-fashioned shuttered restaurant.
Inside it was all they could have hoped for. How they enjoyed their meal! Refreshed and satisfied by the good food, they went on their way.
It was later the same day that Jane was meditating on the sign, “Come just as you are.”
“Fred,” she said thoughtfully, “isn’t that the very invitation the Lord Jesus gives? ‘Come just as you.’ Isn’t that the only way we can come to Him?”
“You’re right!” Her husband shook his head vigorously. “That is the way we come. Just like our going into that nice restaurant; we were dirty and hot and sticky and —”
Jane interrupted eagerly. “I know a verse that explains that perfectly. God loved us, and washed us. First He invites us to come, then He washes us from our sins. The hymn says:
“Come and dine,” the Master calleth.
“Come and dine!”
You may feast at Jesus’ table all the time.
He who fed the multitude; turned the water into wine;
To the hungry calleth now, “Come and dine.”
“And we don’t have to wait until we are all cleaned up and dressed in our best, either,” Fred added. “As you have said, Jane, He loves us in our sinful condition and when we come to Him, just as we are, He washes us in His precious blood, makes us fresh and pure and clean, and fit for His banqueting house.”
They were silent for a few moments, thinking. Then Jane spoke again.
“Fred, whenever I think of that billboard saying, ‘Come just as you are,’ I’ll be reminded of the hymn we sing so often:
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.”
ML-02/04/1962