Sunday morning at breakfast, I was asked to "share" during one of these breaks on Sunday. Sharing the gospel is why I do prison ministry so I was fired up Sunday morning. God had given me a message to share a couple of weeks ago so I was ready. The message God had given me was simply telling about 4 men that I know. I won't give names or details because some of you may know who I'm talking about but I have 3 friends that have done time in prison and are now dead. As I told about each man, one at a time, I shared their stories about their lives and how they died. I shared that one man was definitely in Hell right now. I also told them that I was uncertain about the eternities for the other two because they had no fruit in their lives.
Then I told them about a fourth man, my best friend. A man that told me that anytime I was tired, not sleepy tired but tired of the world, I could come to Him and He would give me rest. This man died for me so that I could spend eternity with Him and His dad. I explained that all we have to do is believe that He died for our sins and believe He rose on the third day, then we could be saved. This "belief" that the Bible talks about isn't the kind of belief that we have in something because we think it to be true. But this kind of "belief" is the kind of belief that we have that our mother is our mother. We don't remember her giving birth to us but because she has always been there, we truly believe she is the one that gave birth to us. That is the kind of belief in Jesus that it takes to be saved.
When I got done speaking, I simply told them that now is their opportunity to know where they will go when they die because they aren't promised tomorrow. 12 men got saved. God was truly working in this prison before we ever got there. I did nothing, it was all the Holy Spirit.
We were about to start playing when this man, a mountain of a man came up to me. Now I don't want to stereotype but just by looking at him, he would not be my first choice for a baby sitter. This guy was obviously making good use of the weights. He was built a lot like Ray Lewis, just tougher. When he came up to me, he just said "I was the first guy you talked about". He told me how he has always been willing to fight at the drop of a hat. He said that he wanted to know where he was going when he died and he has always known about Jesus. He said he has always known he needed to get saved but thought he had to clean up first. During my talk, I shared that we don't make our selves well before we go to the doctor and we don't fix our car before we take it to a mechanic. Neither do we have to "clean up" before we come to Jesus. His name was Ed and his humility truly touched me.
Have you made that decision? Do you know that you know you are saved? If not, please contact me and I will tell you how to be saved.
I love you and God does too!
