JUST PRAY, STOP PICKING AND CHOOSING

John 3:16-18 MSG “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him."

This has been on my heart for the past how long to pray for celebrities. I think we as everyday people forget that the people behind the celebrity are just people like us who go through things like we do. 

Matthew 7:3-5 KJV "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Lately before I put my mouth on what's going on in someone else's house I tell my self, "Get your house in order." I go back to this quote my Dad would use often, "Don't throw rocks from a glass house." The same grace we thank God for everyday, don't they deserve the same grace? I've learned that who ever God puts on my mind to pray for, I stop what I'm doing and pray. Sometimes yes, it is celebrities. As I scroll through my timeline, I see people as for prayer all the time. I also see celebs ask for prayer. So I shouldn't pray for them because they do entertainment? Their bad choices get publicized while some of ours that we don't post about stay private. God sees them all anyway. The sin is already judged right? Jesus didn't come to condemn so what gives me the right? What gives you the right? 

I've been talking about mental health for the past year and a half. I read a story about a guy that checked himself into rehab for a addiction and now he and his wife are divorcing. As a guy that's working through my mental health on a daily, it makes sense for me to send up a prayer for that celeb during this time of trouble. A lot of us have dealt with a lot of death in the last couple of years. I know personally it's gotten closer to home. The same way those losses hurt us, is it safe to say it hurts the celebs as well? I'm not saying condone what some of them do, but ask yourself would God condone all you do? First cast the beam out of your eye.

We're so quick to look at someone and say, "they're too far gone." To who? Were you too far gone? Why is it that when we get delivered, we choose to look down on those who still need it? Remember when you would come to church and people looked at you the same way? Some of the Jesus loving people looked down on you because of your bad choices. Remember how that felt? So why pass that to others? The saying goes, "You can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar." The same honey that drew you will draw others if you use it. 

Remember May is Mental Health Awareness month. Keep praying for those who are working through it on a daily. I'm currently working on something. Not going to say what it is, but keep praying for me, ok? That's all I got for this piece. I thank you for reading. If you feel led, can you please share, retweet, and all that?

Stay saved,

Daniel Richerson

Do we remember how to love?

An artist put a song out about 6 years ago called, How To Love. A lot of stuff has been happening lately. Not just in the "secular" world, but also in the "Christian" community. Someone makes one statement going against what the majority agrees with, then automatically they're buried so deep almost never to rise again. And all that got me to thinking, aren't we supposed to love each other? I guess nothing says I love you like I'm going to bury you alive because I disagree with your opinion. I always go back to this verse. I think I first heard it from Donnie McClurkin one time, I'm not sure, but as soon as I heard it, it stuck with me.

Jeremiah 31:3 "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

An old hymn says, "Thy lovingkindness is better than life. My lips shall praise thee, thus will I bless thee. I will lift up my hands onto thy name." 

The Lord draws us with love, but besides drawing other people with love, we bury them because they're not like us. Dare I say, some of us hate Trump for doing publicly what we do privately. I believe that is called hypocritical. 

My mom recently preached a sermon talking about the church needing a heart transplant. She said some of us have spiritual congestive heart failure. She also said, you can't love God and you don't love people. Citing this verse as a reference, "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20)

Needless to say we have a lot of liars walking around here. Not just in the church either. Some of these entertainers as well. Say they love God but hate anybody that disagrees with their logic. Amazing how some people in the church love to drag these entertainers for doing that, while at the same time they do the same thing. Can't have it both ways. Don't get me wrong, the truth is the truth, no matter who's mouth it comes out of, but as my dad always told me, "Don't throw rocks from a glass house." Better yet the Bible said it like this, "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." (John 8:7)

The truth can hurt. Usually when you're in the wrong, the truth does hurt. I believe that in order to be the church God is calling for in these days, love has to be restored back in our hearts.

"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." Luke 6:45

If love is truly in the heart, then that's what's going to come out. Jesus is love, right? So if Jesus is love, and Jesus has your heart, then why are we hating and burying people? What is really the problem?

I hope you got something out of that. I hope it blessed you. I went into this blog thinking it might be my last one. Due to lack of feedback I get on them, I figured what's the use of continuing them? I don't know what's going to happen moving forward. I'll just ask God for guidance on what I should do.

Stay Saved,

Daniel Richerson

BE THE CHRISTIAN YOU WANT UNBELIEVERS TO BECOME

"The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." ~ Brennan Manning

There's a phrase that says, "Actions speak louder than words." So naturally so spiritually. I can say I'm a good basketball player all I want, which I'm not this is just an example, but until you see me with a basketball on a court, all I'm doing is running my mouth. There's a lot of us believers running our mouths and that's all we're doing. Not throwing stones either, because I'm guilty of it myself. A lot of us honor God on social media and in church because it's easy. We share posts that say stuff like, "Share this if you believe in God." or "Share this and you'll receive a miracle." With stuff like that, I see why some see Christianity as a fantasy. Someone that's on the fence about their spirituality will share one of those posts and then realize that miracles don't work that way, and that little thing right there can be the period on the sentence of unbelief.

We get mad at problems that we ourselves cause. It's like putting your hand on a hot stove then getting mad at the stove for being hot when we're the ones that turned the stove on. The fire usually doesn't start by itself. Someone has to ignite the flame.

You know they say, be the change you wish to see in the world. Let's put it like this. Be the Christian you want unbelievers to become. Good fathers live like the man they want to see their sons end up being. Good fathers live like the man they want to see their daughter marry one day. Nobody is perfect, but that's no excuse for on purpose imperfection. You can't purposely do something wrong then use the excuse, "Nobody's perfect." 

Being a Christian doesn't make you perfect, but it's you trying every day to be like someone who is. So when someone is not perfect, we shouldn't give them the scarlet letter treatment. Especially when we're supposed to be in the business of winning souls. We can't win souls when we're disowning with those who don't agree politically. We got to realize that even though we're all striving to have the mind of Christ that we are all still individuals. So we can still be saved and not think the same on politics.

If we can't still show the love of Jesus to Christians that we don't agree with, how can we expect to win unbelievers? Some of us, when we see a brother or sister in Christ slip just a little bit, and we forget that all have sinned, and we automatically assume that they never knew Jesus in the first place. I can't speak for others but what I try to do is pray for those who are going through. I've learned in life that prayer changes things that talking about them cannot do. Prayer can do what dragging on social media can't do.

Jeremiah 31:3 "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

Stay Saved,

Daniel Richerson