Five Days of Hymn Stories
2
Just As I Am
[W]hoever comes to me I will never drive away.
—John 6:37
“I want to come to Jesus, but I don’t know how,” lamented the bedridden thirty-two-year-old Charlotte Elliott, to Swiss cleric Dr. Caesar Malan. “Come just as you are,” he said, thus planting the seed for Charlotte’s best-known hymn.
She penned Just As I Am in 1834, headed with the text, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” It remains, arguably, the most popular invitation hymn of all time.
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!
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!
You can only come to Jesus as you are.
From there transformation begins.