I’VE BEEN TO PRISON. Well, just as a visitor, but I have been there. In fact, I have been to one of the highest security level prisons there are; Pelican Bay State Prison, located in northern hinterlands of California. There is that old saying, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t not want to live there.” Well, it’s not even a nice place to visit.
Pelican Bay State Prison is filled with some of the worst of the worst when it comes to criminals, and yet in the midst of that very dark place God is at work, and lives are being changed. They are changed because someone cares enough to bring God’s light into the midst of the darkness. Sometimes the light is brought through the preaching of the Word of God by a visiting volunteer chaplain, like myself. Sometimes it is brought by someone linking with an inmate through a ministry like Prison Fellowship, and sometimes the light is lived through the life of a correctional officer who is a follower of Jesus.
This Sunday we join with thousands as we remember the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. It is a time when we focus on the reality that throughout our world it is not only criminals who find themselves imprisoned, but there are thousands who suffer many forms of imprisonment simply because the bear the name of Christian. To us here in America these brothers and sisters are nameless and faceless to us, but they are no less our family. We may not be afforded the blessing of visiting them in prison, as we could an inmate in our county jail, but through the power of prayer we can still have an impact in their lives.
Let us therefore heed the Word of the God, from Hebrews 13, “Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”
Not only today…but everyday.