The other day 4 people unsubscribed to Words for the Day in one day. I don’t monitor who subscribes/unsubscribes, but I do get a report of how many do so. That many unsubscribes in one day is very unusual and I wanted to know what I’d written the day before to determine what stimulated their departure, and it was the one written about going to Gadsden Women’s prison and witnessing to the women inmates there on January 31st.
This is not the first time this has happened with Words for the Day and apparently folks don’t like to hear about prison ministry and/or prison evangelism. So many people have an attitude that these people are merely getting what they deserve and I suppose they prefer just to let them sit in prison and rot and pay for their crimes.
This reminds me of the attitude of Islamic jihadists. A thin red line separates jihadists from us. That line is the blood and love of Jesus Christ. He loves everyone regardless of what they’ve done; jihadists love to follow their blood lust rules.
My wife and I watched a video yesterday where some jihadists threw two men off a tall building killing them because they were homosexuals. These fanatics stone adulterers to death, cut the hands off thieves, rape, crucify, and behead anyone who will not renounce Christ and believe their dogma. In their warped worldview these people are all “getting what they deserve”. The hearts of mankind are dark evil.
Many of these ladies who are incarcerated were sexually molested as children, deprived of an education, raised in abject poverty, beaten, raped, forced into prostitution and drug addiction, sex slavery, and crime. Most came from broken homes and never had a chance.
I spoke with one such lady in church last Sunday. She had just been released from Gadsden. All of her front teeth were missing from the meth and cocaine. (All of my teeth have been replaced too.) She was nearly in tears because she wanted to go to the prison and testify to those who remain and tell them that there is a better way with Jesus Christ and she had found it, but alas she cannot go into a prison this close to her release.
Once someone is saved they should have a deep abiding love for the lost and a burning desire to witness to them. If you are not experiencing that, then pray about it. Perhaps you cannot relate because you came from a “stellar” wealthy family with parents who loved you, maybe you are highly educated, and married to the man or woman of the year.
Ahem . . . According to the Bible your sins have earned you a death sentence and are plenty sufficient to send you to Hell for eternity. (Romans 3:23 . . . For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.) But for the grace of God we would all rot away in hell forever. Praise God that we are healed by His stripes.
We should all be rejoicing that we don’t get what we deserve. If God were a jihadist we’d all die gruesome deaths.
There is still time to register and attend this magnificent event where you can minister to someone and help them find their way to life. You will likely lead more people to Christ in an afternoon than most people will ever do in a lifetime. I’m so looking forward to it that I’ve put off my surgery. I look at it as an opportunity of a lifetime and I don’t know how many more opportunities I’ll get.
If you would like to go contact Jack Murphy 352-804-7812 – jrm526@yahoo.com and he’ll get you registered and we’ll train you. (Note: Men must be accompanied by their wives/girlfriend at this event)
Have a great weekend and go to Honey Lake church, (or somewhere) this Sunday.
John 4:36
Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
January 16, 2015 – Click here to listen