“Venha como Estás” means “Come as You Are”

When the Accuser
Comes for You

I still remember the man sitting on my porch in Brazil. He’d had a situation at his home and he didn’t know what to do, so he grabbed his whiskey bottle and came to church. When the pastor asked his to leave the bottle outside, he reminded the pastor of our motto, “Come as you are.” It was a Friday evening service, and I wasn’t attending, so the pastor called me up and asked if he could send our friend to see me. I pulled two chairs out onto our front porch and he told me the story of how things had escalated out of control in their kitchen.

He lifted his ragged t-shirt to show me where his “wife’s” kitchen knife had sunk into his rib. Half an inch higher or lower, and it would have pierced his heart. Half-drunk. Half in shock. Six children inside the house. A relationship in flames. A neighborhood where almost no one’s parents—or grandparents—knew God.

“I’m going to turn her in,” he said.

We sat in the silence for awhile.

I wondered if he’d thought that through. 

“Who will take care of your children if she’s in jail?”

We sat in the thick tropical darkness, imagining how things might play out. 

He was still holding his bottle of whiskey as we prayed for wisdom and for God’s intervention. It was a holy time.

Ministry in the Margins

Not tidy discipleship charts.
Not clean before-and-after stories.
But knife wounds. Broken trust. Impossible decisions.

And into that chaos, the Accuser whispers his favorite lies:

You’re worthless.
God is punishing you.
You’ve gone too far.
You’ll never be enough.

The enemy loves the extremes.

I remember a Bible school student once crushed with guilt for crossing the street on a red light—his past life had been a wreck, and now his conscience screamed over a Bible School rule violation.

I remember that call from a pastor when our friend showed up to church drinking straight from a whiskey bottle, quoting our own slogan—“Come as you are. You’ll be loved.”

That pastor and I had history. We both remembered when he had showed up at church drunk, years earlier, overwhelmed with his life situations.

This is what I love about church planting. A healthy community shares the load.

Governments build roads and sanitation systems.
Healthy churches navigate relationships.

When a community of people walks together, many things can happen at once. Lives change. Families heal. Neighborhoods transform.

The Accuser works both sides.

If he can’t crush us with shame, he’ll inflate us with self-righteousness.
If we won’t believe we’re beyond grace, he’ll convince us we don’t need it.

If guilt keeps looping in your mind,
If regret feels louder than grace,
If the Accuser is working overtime,

Memorize Psalm 6.

Pray it morning, noon, and night until it begins to feel true.

And when the Psalm speaks of enemies, don’t picture your pastor, your parents, your neighbor, or your kids.

Picture the voice that tells you you’re beyond grace or beneath notice.
That voice is the enemy.

Notice how Psalm 6 is structured—paired phrases circling an immovable center. As you compare David’s words, let the Spirit reshape your imagination around God’s truth instead of the Accuser’s lies.

What accusation keeps circling back in your mind?
What would it sound like to pray Psalm 6 over that lie this week?

Prayer

Lord, silence the Accuser’s voice.
Let me hear Yours instead,
The voice that calls me
Beloved,
Redeemed,
Held.

Amen.