Jesus saves through God’s Amazing Grace…
Only God has the power to recycle men and women’s lives and to make all things new.
There are two types of people in jail or prison:
1. those who were wrongfully accused and victimized by an unjust system, and
2. those who are guilty and whose punishment is just according to the system of law they have broken.
The Bible has something to say to both the innocent and guilty who are in jail / prison.
To the guilty, the Bible recommends truth and submission to the laws of the government, and it offers freedom from the spiritual prison of sin—freedom that comes through the person of Christ (Romans 6:18).
To the innocent and wrongfully accused, the Bible offers peace, patience, and hope in difficult circumstances, as well as the hope of heavenly reward.
There are also many outside the Prison Walls who are also in a jail of their own making, who are bound by the chains of their own life’s circumstances, the consequences of their upbringing and the mistakes of the past.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says…
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.
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When Jesus first started His earthly ministry, in Luke 4:18, He gave us the reason for His God-given mission:
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, TO PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
In the above verse, Jesus boldly announced,
“The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
Jesus was proclaiming Himself as the Messiah, the one who would bring the Good News to pass, but He would do so in a way that the people were not yet able to grasp.
His neighbors could hardly believe such a remarkable claim.
And yet this is the very reason why the Father sent Jesus to Earth, to pay the penalty for ALL of our SINS, through His propitious sacrificial death on Calvary’s Cross and to bring His lost children home.
No matter how dark your past, or how many grievous sins you may have committed in your life, the promise of the Cross is that Jesus will wipe all your sins away!
Listen to what God is saying to each of us in the following verse:
Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ “
All we have to do is repent, renounce our sins and turn back to God; and these are the benefits for all who do, their sins are forgiven, through Jesus’ shed blood on the cross, and God now puts our sins in the deepest part of the ocean, with a sign that says no more fishing!
Psalm 103:1-14
1 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
2 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
3 He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
4 He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
5 He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
6 The Lord gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
7 He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
9 He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
10 He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
12 HE HAS REMOVED OUR SINS AS FAR FROM US
AS THE EAST IS FROM THE WEST.
13 The Lord is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate TO THOSE WHO FEAR (REVERENCE) HIM.
14 For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
SELAH (let us pause and calmly think about these things)
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Saturday, April 15
The Winning Walk
by Dr Ed Young
KISSED AND TUCKED IN
Bob McAllister met Rusty Wellborn on death row.
Bob was the Assistant to the Governor of South Carolina; Rusty was an inmate.
Bob was a Christian man who routinely visited death row to talk to prisoners. And Rusty was one of the worst.
He had been physically and emotionally abused, and had never known a loving home.
He had been on death row for ten years for a brutal crime spree that involved four murders.
The first few times Bob visited, Rusty never spoke.
He lay curled up on the floor, broken, filthy and unresponsive.
Gradually, Bob got him to talk, and eventually, to read the Bible with him.
Weeks and months passed, but finally God broke through-and Rusty Wellborn received Jesus Christ.
When all appeals for Rusty’s life were exhausted, an execution day was set.
Bob visited him the night before, and Rusty asked him to read from the Bible until he fell asleep.
When Rusty’s breathing was even and his eyes closed, Bob closed the Bible, crept over to Rusty’s bunk, pulled up the blanket and gently kissed him on the cheek.
The next day as he was led to his death, Rusty turned to the guard who was escorting him, and said,
“It’s sad, isn’t it, that a man has to wait until his last night on earth to be kissed and tucked in?”
When we receive Jesus Christ, it is as if we are kissed and tucked in each night by the Holy Spirit.
He watches over us, and makes our sleep sweet. But we are also to “kiss and tuck in” one another-as Bob did for Rusty.
To show the love and compassion of Christ at every opportunity.
Rusty was right: no one should have to wait until his last night on earth to be kissed and tucked in.
Memory Verse
PSALMS 121:3
He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
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