Come to Me

What do we say when someone asks, “How are you?”  Usually we reply, “Fine. You?”

Are we “fine”?  Usually not.  Something hurts, something is troubling, we have stresses, conflicts, worries.

We don’t want to dump all this on someone else, so…”I’m fine thanks. You?”

Have you noticed?  Jesus never asks anyone how they are.  Instead, he says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

He knows we are not fine.  So instead of asking, he tells us what will help: come to him.

Another time, “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” (John 7:37-38)

He doesn’t ask who is spiritually thirsty—he tells us what to do about it: come to him.

Sometimes, we humans don’t like being told we’re not fine.  To another audience, Jesus challenged, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”  (John 5:39-40)

Would we ever do this?  Believe the Bible and study the Bible, but not actually come to Jesus?  People can do this—these folks did.  And we can, perhaps.

Notice: Jesus does NOT say it’s wrong to search the scriptures, or that it’s wrong to think that in them we can find eternal life.  What he does say is that those scriptures talk about Messiah—and notice he’s talking about the Old Testament.  The whole Bible is about Jesus, and we need to pay attention to what the scriptures teach.  Jesus is not with us physically now.  So if we want to come to Jesus, the first thing is to pay attention to the scripture and learn what it is truly teaching about Jesus.

This is foundational, the essential beginning.  It’s not the end.

Another necessary thing is that we don’t deceive ourselves into thinking we’re “fine”.  We are not fine.  We are dying.  We are in trouble before our Maker.  We are hurting.

When all those people went to Jesus to be healed, were they saying, “I’m fine”?  Obviously not.  They were confessing they needed help.  We must confess that we need help.  Otherwise we’re coming to Jesus in name only.

When people came to Jesus, did he say, “Good, now you’re here, now you’re fine”?  No!  He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  (Matthew 4:17)  It’s not enough to just show up, to put in an appearance.  When we come to him, he says we have to change.  A great deal of what the apostles wrote for us details the changes the Lord insists we make, if we are really coming to him.

The changes can only begin when I admit I’m not “fine”.  I’m in bad shape.  Only then will I come to Jesus for real, to learn, to find healing.  We find him in the scriptures, yes, and also we find him in prayer, and we find him in his people—the people around us, who are coming to him just as we are. 

And then, having found him, we must allow ourselves to be changed by him.

Have we done this before?  Of course we have.  Do we still need to do it?  Of course we do—because until the kingdom, we are not fine, and we continue needing to come to Jesus.

Love, Paul