I was talking to a buddy of mine yesterday, (C.F. Hazlewood), who will speak at Honey Lake Church on October 13th. C.F. began his career as a tough Marine who went off to war as a no-nonsense commander who took care of business. Upon leaving the military he became a correctional officer in the state of Texas.
Now C.F. is BIG man and imposing figure, and the kind of guy one can just look at and know that he is not to be crossed (especially if you’re looking to start trouble). Things were much different 30 years ago when C.F. began his career as a correctional officer. Inmate treatment in Texas was brutal, and those hapless inmates who dared to break the rules and/or defy him paid a steep price and C.F. took great pleasure in sadistically meting out those lessons to them.
In 1982 something wonderful happened to C.F. in that Jesus Christ entered his heart and flooded it with his love. His hatred turned to compassion and he began using the lofty position that he’d attained as Director of the Texas correctional system as a tool to minister to the inmates.
Today he spends countless hours preaching, teaching, and discipling offenders on a weekly basis. He’s so fervent about his mission in fact, that he even received the Governor of Texas Volunteer Service Award in 2008 for prison ministry.
I’ve served with him in that capacity and can tell you first hand that he has the heart of Jesus in caring for those tortured souls and their eternal plight. A few months back I went into death row with him to witness to condemned inmates whose dates with lethal injection had already been set for the next month. (Nine gave their hearts to the Lord that day.)
He’s been a pastor of a large church in Huntsville Texas for some 28 years. He asked me what I wanted him to preach about and I told him I wanted him to speak about the incomprehensible love and compassion of Christ. (I figured what better person to speak to it than someone who was devoid of it early in his life and then consumed by it later.)
In speaking with him I lamented the fact that so many church goers judge, convict, and condemn anyone and everyone whom they think doesn’t live up to their self-righteous standards. C.F. made a comment that stunned me. He said, “Bob I’ve been a pastor for 28 years and worked in the correctional system for about the same amount of time. The meanest people I’ve ever encountered were in the churches, and not in the prisons!”
I’m reading a book, “The Sinners Creed” written by Scott Stapp, (the lead singer of the rock and roll band Creed). Throughout his early life his father beat him, his sisters, and his mother on a daily basis. He purportedly did so in an effort to rid them of the sin that he said was imbedded within their beings. He told them they could not go to heaven until they achieved perfection on earth and his misguided intent was to beat all of their sin out of them. His father placed him in a private Christian college and he experienced similar attitudes from the staff there which succeeded in turning him completely away from his Christian upbringing and he soon got caught up in drugs, sex, and rock and roll.
His early bad experiences affected Scott’s entire life and though he claims to have discovered the love and compassion of God today; to me he still seems tortured and has hang-ups about those childhood experiences that to this day still deprive him of achieving any real peace and joy in his life.
Sigh . . . The Bible unequivocally declares that we can never achieve perfection on this earth; if we could there would have been no reason for Jesus to have visited the cross. Even a cursory read of the Bible would have revealed that fact.
A young lady visited my office for some counseling last week. She broke down in tears and said she was totally confused about many things concerning her spiritual walk. Someone near and dear to her was making strange remarks and invoking rigid rules supposedly straight out of the Bible and trying to make her feel guilty about practically everything, (including attending a church where electric guitars were used). He insisted to her that musical instruments of any kind were not to be used to worship because God forbade it. Guess he wasn’t familiar with the Psalms or maybe he didn’t know the definition of a trumpet, harp, or lyre. (Psalm 150:3 Praise Him with trumpet blast; praise Him with harp and lyre.)
Egad! Why can’t these people lighten up? GOD LOVES YOU! God is love. He died for your sins. He wants to help you.
Okay let’s say you commit a sin. Now is God angry with you and ready to swat you one.
A small child is in the kitchen watching his mother cook. He sees a red hot orange burner and it looks pretty to him. He reaches for it, but his mother sees him and screams NO!!!
His hand recoils momentarily, but then he glares at his mama for depriving him of his pleasure and reaches up and grabs it anyway. He badly burns his hand.
Now is the mother mad? No, she just wants to minister to the tot’s injured hand. That’s how I envision Jesus ministering to us. Just like the kid getting burned for disobeying his mama, the law makes it clear that we get burned when we violate God’s commands. Consequence follows sin, but the Bible makes it clear that Jesus ministers to sinners; He heals, forgives, and forgets . . .
I suggested to the young lady that she read the Bible for herself and quit relying on second hand explanations from people who don’t have a clue. She has a mind; she can read; she can understand; and so can you. Pick up a Bible and read it!
If you’ve never read the Bible for yourself, you are entrusting your eternal salvation to others or worse to some innate logic; seems to me that where you spend eternity and find peace, joy, and love in your life before departing this one should be more important to you than that. In fact the Bible contains the truth and it will set you free . . .
John 8:32
“If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
September 17, 2013 – Click here to listen