Tag Archives: ccc

A Prisoner Set Free Though Bonds Remain

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“So that your trust may be in the LORD, I have taught you today, even you.” (Proverbs 22)

One of my inmate “parishioners” from #CCC came to me last night in a fret after my fledging “Advent Message” on the “Consequences of the Incarnation” Today, he goes before a federal judge, and faces possible sentencing from 10 years to Life for the “consequences” of Fed Drug charges. He has ever been the model student and believer for months, and states that about 10 months ago God changed him. “Something happened.”

In my numerous years of prison ministry I have seen brokenness and I have seen the con of the con man. Jailhouse religion really abounds. It takes wise discernment to sense the heart and I do so imperfectly. I have had my share of disappointments and affirmations. But in this case this man has sat faithfully under the sound of the preached word for several months or years, and on multiple occasions I have witnessed his honest non-verbal wrenching and wrestling and grimacing with the hard gospel truth of repentance and faith, of dying to self and of cross-bearing; of discipleship and following the Christ of Scripture regardless the cost. We pull no punches but lay out the full-orbed Gospel truth of man’s guilt and God’s just wrath satisfied in the substitutionary work of Christ and Christ alone. We don’t peddle the word of God as many, nor do we offer a soft-sell faith of easy believism, but rather we preach the blood-stained, old rugged cross. We teach, “ Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I say?”

My pupil is a voracious reader and has a cell full of quality Christian literature we have given him. Screwtape and Pilgrims Progress are some of his favorites. Greg Steele and I have taught him for months. Week by week as I have observed him, I believe he believes. I believe he understands. And I wonder what God has for him? We prayed. I counseled. His fears of today are real. He was troubled about the “why” of his fear (he perceived this as a lack of faith and not a mere attack of faith), and anxiety wondering why faith seemed to have fled him in this near hour of darkness. (Doesn’t faith always stress us in trial?) He then remembered the Garden and how Christ struggled. My inmate parishioner ultimately prayed in like manner, “Thy will be done.” I encouraged him to boast of his weakness that Christ might be manifest and perfect His power within him. I reminded him that Lewis states in Screwtape that having courage is not the same as feeling courageous. A man of courage acknowledges his fears and chooses to do the right thing regardless of fear. The Word instructs us in the right thing. Courage is a plan of action implemented, it is not a feeling; it is a directed course of action. The right thing is to not be anxious but to pray the Lord in acknowledgment of fears, with thanksgiving, and with the expectation of peace. Courage finally trusts God with the results though they may not be as desired or prayed. He believed that.

I think we as free men and believers do well in application of the following. My experience says there are many repentant brethren incarcerated for past transgressions who yet suffer consequences for their wrongdoing of another past life. They love the Lord and serve Him with painful gladness today. They miss family and friends yet their faith flourishes. They need your encouragement by prayer. These men want to be as a Joshua. They want to be as Joseph. They need your prayers.

I also steered him to Psalm 27 and 139 in further counsel. I told him the Psalms are for comfort and instruction in trial. Pray for him. He is a good man who erred. The Father knows his name. The Son too. My desire is for leniency but more so for His continued usefulness as we really don’t know what God has in store for him.

“Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.”Hebrews 13:3

Remember those in Prison as though with Them… A Report of Sorts with an Appeal for Prayer 

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#CCC Ministry last PM

Charlie or C Pod

Series: Proverbs 6 on The 7 Abominations that God Hates

Topic: “Feet that Run Rapidly to Evil”

Jesus: He is the antithesis of what God hates…

Jesus is the quintessential fulfillment of the love of God and the life of God as He was and is God Personified. Jesus walked always and only in righteousness.
Of course the warning of feet entering the evil path has the previous proverb precursor of “A Heart that Devises Wicked Plans” which we discussed last week. Our feet walk toward our heart’s desire, thus the charge to keep it with diligence. Thus the need for God to overthrow our ungodly heart of stone and make us to walk with new heart in His way. He makes us to do this! (Ezekiel 36: “I will put my Spirit within you and CAUSE you to walk in My path…”)

Please #Pray for these men. I long to see Christ open their eyes and Christ to finally be formed in them. We walked through Proverbs 7, (one of the saddest chapters in the whole Bible), using the terrible example of the naive young man whose feet led him to a wild night in the bed of the harlot as she opened the door for him to enter hell. The arrow piercing into the young man’s liver (as toxins build and the body slowly poisons itself or he bleeds to death) is a most vivid and eye opening illustration of the wise Father’s counsel to His son. What a vivid warning of sin’s deadly nature. It was pointed and powerful, and the Word rocked us all back upon our heels as the Spirit moved. I feel many are near the Kingdom as interest seems heightened and some alarm over their spiritual poverty seems manifest. The Spirit is such a gentle Dove, and I long to not grieve Him. May He be pleased to appear in cloven tongues of Fire and convict of sin and righteousness and judgment to come.

Fly to Christ with those feet! Get off the path to death and destruction. Find the Way to life in the Author of life!

So pray as God prompts. It’s not some strange doctrine I preach. It is the gospel of grace that tells the love story of the Friend of sinners. He came for these guys who have been routed in life by habitual life choices of sin. Jesus sets the captive free! That’s the good news that fixes the bad news of our condition. 

Hebrews 13:3

“Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.”

Preaching & Prisoners & Prayer

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When prisoners of #CCC (Caddo Correctional Center) crowded round in response to the Gospel message there was joy as God made His move at the end last evening’s chapel service. They soberly entreated prayer for felt needs and tangible fears. You see they have no hope nor help unless God acts, and they daily live in the driven reality of this constraint. That is not all bad. It can turn redemptive by Divine design.

“Dust and rust, thy life’s reward? Slay the thought! Believe thy Lord!” (A Carmichael)

Ideally this present life of imprisoned restraint could actually become the narrow neck of the funnel that rapidly propels the prisoner toward that unique avenue that opens into the flowing River of Life. Part of my role as “shade-tree” pastor-counselor is to first isolate their location and then encourage their escape out of the difficult place they live by entry into the path of possibilities filled with Gospel promises. This great escape can only be offered without promise of immediate change in circumstance and with no pretense of anything beyond God’s presence and approval in the final analysis. This is not really a “hard-sell” to the inmate if they are apprehended by the God who delights to build His new house upon the very foundation that their sin constructed. It rings with a clear, full tone of eternal truth and hope. Otherwise their life seems destined for destruction. 

Simply stated their surroundings are at work to sharpen their spiritual acuity as their visual perception becomes focused upon an ever-narrowing experience of reality. The fluff and stuff of life are gone. These disappeared into Neverland with the resounding clang of the prison doors. Four walls now encroach upon their existence. Their experience is confined to the consequential grind of old life choices come home to haunt them. We on the outside easily neglect and even stumble over that which they have come to value as true needs in their distilled, simplistic world. Our affluence becomes a distortion… an idol… of our perceived reality, and we easily miss what they learn, where they live, what they value, and why this is Truth that screams incessantly to Conscience. 

In retrospect I think the real obstacle in this opportunity of prayer is to draw their attention to prayer’s reality, not as an “abracadabra magical-method” to swish away all troubles. The goal is the challenge to unmask prayer’s mystique. The prisoner must begin to embrace prayer as quiet communion with God as an elementary exercise God affords to teach us to entrust our cares and burdens to the wise, personal, powerful God who knows our needs before we even think to ask.

So my real goal in prayer with any inmate is for us to seek God together, not to the end of audible clangs of the cell doors as they rattle and swing open; rather my prayer for them is answered if I point them to a God who is near to the broken-hearted and a God who is willing to forgive the debts of those now crushed in spirit.