I had a really neat phone call today. Tammy left a message for me. We went to the same high school. She had read the book Paradise and wanted to chat about it. She really liked it.
She explained that she had gone through some ups and downs in life. Some of those things just happened to her and others were self-inflicted. She ended up in jail for a probation violation, and that is where she found Paradise! She couldn’t believe she saw a book there that was written by someone she knew.
Her experience in jail was a good one. God used it to get her attention. Nothing wrong with that! God is in the business of getting everyone’s attention. We will either heed that conviction this side of eternity or be forever lost on the other side. Either way, God will get our attention
Tammy is saved now and wants to serve Jesus with her life. Please say a prayer for her. She has been clean since 2017 and wants to stay that way.
She told me that when she read Paradise she took tons of notes. She stated that reading it drove her right to her Bible to find answers. Praise ye the Lord!! That is what we hope happens with all of our books.
In the course of the conversation, she confessed, “I have totally wasted my life.” Nope! I don’t buy that. We don’t live life looking in the rearview mirror as believers. We might grieve the time we spent in sin, but as believers, we have a totally new outlook on life. We finish the race well and hand off the baton of faith to those coming behind us.
One thing we battle in the prisons and jails is the abundance of not-so-good religious materials. There are tons of books in them written by false teachers. We need to get more and more solid, biblical teachings inside of prisons. Call up the chaplain at a local jail or prison. Ask them if you can send some books for the inmates. They will almost always tell you, “Yes.” So many prisoners have told me that their lives finally slowed down once they got to jail and that’s when they started to read again. Tammy told me that Bibles were very scarce in jail. Maybe consider donating some KJV Bibles to your chaplains as well.
Sometimes, we can’t get inside of prisons to visit the men and women there, but we can definitely “visit them” with solid Christian literature.
Matthew 25:43-45
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
Until the Nets are Full,
P.S.
