“Mr. Preacher man I don't want no trouble I just came to praise and worship with my brothers
Praying to the Lord and hoping he forgive us
I want God to save us don't want the streets to kill us
I’m like Mr. Preacher man please don't be alarmed
We just come to pray we don't mean no harm
I see how you looking of course we ain't perfect we figured if we come to see Jesus it would be worth it
We live up the block and I know you seen us
Running from the cops all this senseless killing
We want it to stop
We want you to know Sir
If you don’t let us in we have no place to go Sir” ~ Mr. Preacher man, Canton Jones

What is it that you go to church for? Do you go for praise and worship, or do you go to see what people are wearing? Do you go to make sure that nobody from the LGBTQ+ community walk in the service? What do you go to church for? If you can’t praise because of who’s in church, I question are you really a praiser? Are you really a worshipper if your worship relies on who is sitting on your row? We have gotten so comfortable with treating church like a social club we wonder why people join and leave within a month. If lovingkindness draws, it is going to take lovingkindness for them to stay.

I’m a YouTube junkie, and recently my favorite videos to watch have become videos that show broken equipment getting repaired. Like they will take a broken x box, take it apart, clean it, replace what may or may not be broken, and then put it back together. Now imagine if the x-box or what ever is getting fixed was like, “I’m fine. I don’t need to be fixed. I’m fine just the way I am.” All the while it can’t even turn on by itself. If it turns on, the screen is blank. The way it used to work; it does not working the same way. So, it would rather die than get repaired. That doesn’t make sense, does it? That’s like what we do when there’s altar call, knowing we need to be fixed, but to proud to admit that we need to get fixed. It’s written, “First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.”

So why do we blame God when the crash comes? The old saints would say, “He’s a keeper if you want to be kept.” You got to want to be kept. It’s written, “To day you hear his voice, harden not your heart.” The Easy-to-Read Version says it like this, “If you hear God’s voice today, don’t be stubborn.” Isaiah says, “So you should look for the Lord before it is too late. You should call to him now, while he is near.” That’s why I don’t get why we’re so quick to chastise the people that may walk in the church that look and act different that we do. They’re just sick people going to the hospital. Sometimes you don’t realize how sick you are until you get a checkup. Back in 2013, I didn’t know I had congestive heart failure until I went to the ER.

Do we condone? No, but we’re not God. Someday they’ll meet the maker, but we’re not the maker. Yes, we do have to call sin a sin, but if you see me chillin and laughing with someone that may not be saved, don’t come after me. It’s funny, you work with the type of people you don’t allow to come in your church to hear the good Word. “But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?” Remember where you were before you gave your life to God? Think about that next time you see somebody walk into church that may not look and act like you. If it wasn’t for the grace God, you’d probably still be where they are.

I posted this screenshot recently and I think it goes with what I’ve been talking about through this post. Mark 2:15-17 MSG, “Later Jesus and his disciples were at home having supper with a collection of disreputable guests. Unlikely as it seems, more than a few of them had become followers. The religion scholars and Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company and lit into his disciples: “What kind of example is this, acting cozy with the riffraff?” Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin sick, not the spiritually-fit.”

John 3:17 ERV, “God sent his Son into the world. He did not send him to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him.”

Fred Hammond is one of my favorite artist period. One of my favorite songs by him is called, Don’t Pass Me By. “I know I'm broken, but you can heal me, Jesus, Jesus I'm calling you
Might not be worth much, but I'm still willing
Jesus, Jesus, I'm calling you”

Continue to pray for me. I thank all of you for your support over the past years that I’ve typing these up. I would love to read your comments if you have any. I’d like to thank those who share the blogs. On that note, if you got this far and you liked what you read, will you please share or retweet this? As I’ve said before, I want to get as much views as I can, but if I just reach one person, I feel like I did my job. How am I doing mentally…. well, that’s for another blog post.

Stay Saved,

Daniel Richerson
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