This weekend about 200 of us joined the Inmate Encounter prison ministry and descended on several prisons in central Florida to minister to the men and women inmates incarcerated there. Over 800 of them made decisions to either receive Christ or renew their walk with Him.
We had a great time and it felt really good to help so many people. The night before we went in to the prisons I talked with several folks who were first timers to prison ministry and they were very apprehensive about going in for the first time. I saw them later and they were beaming with big smiles on their faces having led several people to receive Christ (for the first time in their lives) and they loved the entire experience.
I hear from so many people who wish they could participate in some sort of ministry. I am amazed that they feel this way. There are so many opportunities to participate in so many ministries that it is mind boggling that they have not found one. I estimate that there are easily over one million ministries of all types just in the United States. Why can’t they find one that suits them? I ask myself: Have they prayed about it? Have they Googled their ministry interests to see if there is one they like that has a need in their area?
I told the inmates during my testimony that one definition of insanity is to expect something to change without doing anything different. I related that if when they were released that they did the same things they were doing before they came into prison that they would surely end right back in the slammer in short order. If what they had been trying is not working, then they simply need to try something new. In their case I told them to enroll in programs offered in the prisons whereby they could get an education, learn vocational skills, learn to deal with emotional problems like low self-esteem, anger, and guilt, and how to deal with addictions. I told them that they need to get involved with the chapel and seek God’s purpose for their lives. When they get out they needed to stop hanging around with thugs and go to church and work like the rest of society.
It’s no different in finding a way to serve God. Most ministries need more volunteers. I can personally attest that nothing I’ve ever done in my life, no material thing I’ve owned, no achievement I’ve gained, can come close to comparing to leading others to Christ, so I love things that have to do with evangelism. Other folks I know have different interests. That’s okay the body of Christ needs all kinds of members doing varying functions.
You can be a part of expanding God’s kingdom too. All it takes is for you to get off the couch and spend some time researching the opportunities that are appealing to you. Find one that sounds good and then contact them and go to work. If you don’t like it and it isn’t what you thought it would be, then find another pronto!
I’m not advocating prison ministry as the best option for everyone even though one like Inmate Encounter has many varying opportunities. You might find that you don’t want to pray for the prison ministry staff or inmates, go inside a prison and speak directly with inmates, write letters to them, try to disciple them in chapel, work with their spouses and children to help them while they are incarcerated, help them find a job when they get out, or have anything to do with any criminal.
I say fine go help kids that have been trafficked as sex slaves, or work towards ending abortion, or poverty, or help the sick, or teach a kid how to read the Bible, or visit old people in a home, or visit someone in a hospital, or work towards getting Godly leaders elected, or work with those who have been abused, or are homeless etc.
Just do something! You will never regret it, but you will regret doing nothing, maybe not today, or next week, month, or year, but at some point you will regret not working for the Lord. I pray it is not when you have been called home and are standing before God and accounting for what you did with all of the gifts that He gave you and you have to tell Him that you spent all your time and devoted all your talent and resources to your own selfish interests and made no time for Him. Can you imagine how that might make you feel? Well get ready because we all will face God and give that accounting.
Yikes I want to hear Him say “Well done my faithful servant come on in to heaven and let’s get something to eat together” or something similar.
2 Cor. 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
May 23, 2016 – Click here to listen