Friends in prison,
When you hear a statement like the one above, what is your first reaction? Is it a reaction that causes you to personally reflect on someone you may know who has been incarcerated for a particular crime? Maybe it is a person or persons you may be either related to or are friends with that has been placed into jail/prison.
As Christians, we are called by Jesus Himself to reach out to and pray for those individuals who have made mistakes in their lives and have had to pay the price of being sentenced to serve time within a corrections facility. When we do minister to such people, we are both ministering to Jesus and serving in His name.
It may at times be hard to think about being called to reach these friends in prison, who are seen as least in our society. But whatever we do to the least of these our brothers and sisters that we do unto Christ. Jesus died for all sinners. Those in prison and those like you and me. We all need Jesus and His forgiveness in our lives. If you have sinned once, broken one commandment, you are condemned under the Law. But thanks be to God, in Christ Jesus, that Jesus took on the penalty we all deserve. He paid the price that we are responsible for as sinful human beings. Jesus sacrificially stepped up and gave Himself, by the giving of His body and the shedding of His blood, so we could be set free from the consequences of our sinning which is death.
Therefore, it is only by the grace of God that I am saved and not by my own doing!
We, will be once again, be sending Christmas cards to our friends who are in prison. What a wonderful opportunity this is for us, as children of God, to share Jesus with them and to provide them the opportunity to experience the hope we have in Christ, the Anointed One, the Savior of all. May we be able to let them know with full confidence that “Jesus is the real reason for this blessed Christmas Season.” Pastor McCarty