Last night I went into Jefferson Prison with some buddies from church. Pastor Kenny Munds did a good job advertising as there was standing room only in the auditorium. The inmates sang several songs that moved me deeply, and then our guys performed a few numbers. Afterwards I gave my testimony and at the end asked those who wanted Jesus in their lives to allow us to pray with them.
God gave a bountiful harvest and we were blessed as many inmates came to us. I was standing down front and a line formed with inmates asking me to pray for them. Some had sick members in their families, some were fighting temptations, others were fearful of what might happen when they got out, and so forth.
One man came to me and asked me to pray that he could forgive someone who had greatly wronged him. He rattled off all of the wrongs that had been exacted upon him and it was everything from this guy messing with his girlfriend to selling his car while he was locked up.
I counseled him about forgiveness and related that I had problems with it as well. He again began spewing venom against the guy who had screwed him over and he growled through clinched teeth, “He doesn’t DESERVE to be forgiven!”
I quickly retorted, “Neither do we my friend, but Jesus forgave us anyway and He said if we aren’t willing to forgive others then we cannot be forgiven”. I could tell from his expression that this hit home and seemed to register.
I went on to tell him that forgiveness was about US and not the person being forgiven. I said, “Night after night you lay in that cell thinking about this guy and you are allowing it to eat you up. All it does is harm you and this guy isn’t even aware of your misery”.
He thanked me and I moved on to others waiting in line until finally they started moving the inmates out and back to their cells. As they were filing out, the guy with whom I’d counseled and prayed about forgiveness came up to me and told me that whether I knew it or not I had just saved someone from certain death tonight.
“How so?” I asked.
Suddenly his demeanor and expression completely changed before my eyes and he looked as though a demon had entered his body. I’ve seen people get baptized in the Holy Spirit and take on an expression of holiness when they are being filled with the Spirit that is difficult to describe. This old boy’s expression dramatically changed, but it was just the opposite; he had a look of pure evil about him that was equally difficult to describe. He looked at me with cold, hate-filled, mean eyes and told me that he was getting out in just a few months and he had a Remington 30-06 stashed away and had planned on killing the guy that had wronged him.
He said because of what you said tonight I’m going to let him “slide” and allow him to live. I’m going to forgive him.
I told him that I was very happy that God had filled him with His love and changed his heart. When I said that his expression abruptly changed back to normal. I related to him that I had been in prison ministry for many years and had met numerous guys in prisons all over the country and many of them were in there for decades for exacting revenge on someone. In fact I even talked to a couple of guys on death row that were awaiting execution for taking vengeance into their own hands.
I mentioned that they were the ones who suffered the most when they disobeyed one of the central premises of Jesus in that grace is about giving everyone something that none of us deserve: FORGIVENESS. We deserve to go to hell for our sins, but Jesus forgave us yet while we were sinners.
To me this is the enigma of the century. Why does He do it? Because He loves us more than we can comprehend and He wants us to love each other in like fashion.
So we had a wonderful time last night. The only bad thing was I had intended to meet my good friend T.K. at the Mexican joint for supper at 7:30. I didn’t realize how long the program was going to last and I walked out of the prison at 9:00. I called him and told him I was starving. He began bragging about how excellent his meal had been and told me that he was really sorry to inform me that the restaurant had closed at 9:00 and he had just left. Yeah right, I bet that old goat was sorry . . .
Grrrrrrrrr!!!! . . . Ahem . . . Yes I forgave the big rat . . .
My wife is much better today – Still not out of the woods, but the doc gave her some meds that seem to be working much better. Praise God and thanks for the prayers.
John 3:16
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
May 27, 2015 – Click here to listen