Just Come!

I think it is easier to talk with people working to overcome an addiction about grace than “regular folks”.  The need for grace in an addicts life is glaringly obvious to them and often to those around them.  They can point to a huge problem, such as, gambling, drug use, drinking, or pornography, and say “Yep, I need help beating this, I cannot do it on my own!”  This simple cry for help is all God wants.  The flood gates of grace are opened.

So what about the “regular folks”?  Their need of grace is just as longed for and important.  What about the lady that does not have a huge red flag to point to as her area of hurt and brokenness?  But she still struggles to get through her day?  Is the hurt not as real for her?  Is the need for God’s love and grace less for “regular folks”?  I often wonder if people don’t miss the blessing of His grace because they do not have some identifiable red flag in their lives.  Aren’t “regular folks” just as thirsty?

In Isaiah 55, the prophet is trumpeting for all to come and experience the free gift of God’s eternal, everlasting grace.  “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isaiah 55:1)  Four times we are called to “come!”  There is no precursor to this call.  You do not have to be a special type of broken.  The invitation is for everyone!  Just come!

Jesus refers to prophet’s words when He is talking with an outcast by a well in John 4:13.  Jesus knows the woman is longing for something to fill the void in her life.  Something or someone to show her love.  Extend to her grace eternal!  A thirst quenching grace that will never run out and can be trusted in any situation of life.  Just come!

You may be reading this thinking, “Yea, but the lady by the well was a hot mess.  Wasn’t she a whore or something?  I am not like her!  I am not broken like that!  I have my act together.”  Perhaps you are not like her and maybe you do not have a the huge red flag an addict may have in their life.  But the call is still to - just come!  

Jesus doesn’t leave this idea with the lady at the well.  In John 7:37-39, He yells it to the masses!  John even refers to this as Jesus making a final stand!  “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way.”  Just come!

Life without grace is difficult to say the least.  There is brokenness inside of us all.  That hole is longing and thirsty for a quenching grace that can only be found in Jesus.  Isaiah was proclaiming it and Jesus fulfilled it!  Just come!