Dear Friend,
This week I sat across the table from a released prisoner who had
just spent 30 years of a 50-year prison sentence for robbery and murder.
Released late this past summer for good behavior, Phil was no longer a prisoner
of sin, but he was now a prisoner for Christ.
We first met a few years ago when I was involved in a prison
ministry at Calvary Chapel, Old Bridge, N.J. I was a part of a team from the
church that was leading services at Rahway State, a maximum-security prison for
those committing the most serious of crimes.
With a wife who had left him, a family that had turned their back
on him, his only friends were those in prison garb. His past had finally caught
up with him, and he had little to look forward to but serving the remainder of
his life behind prison bars.
But shortly after entering prison, Phil came to know Jesus through
the witness of another inmate, and his life was radically transformed. From
drinking to drugs, to robbery and then murder, Phil had led a very violent
past, but it all changed the day when he met a fellow inmate, and he turned his
life over to Jesus.
Following his acceptance of Christ, Phil had become the prison
gardener, as well as one of the volunteer prison chaplains. Following my first
visit to the prison, I met him several more times, and I was always impressed
with the reality of his faith and his witness for Christ.
During our breakfast, Phil gave me a printed copy of his
testimony. When I got home, I learned more of the specifics of his conversion.
Phil writes, “Tony told me of a new life in Christ, of hope and
forgiveness of sins. I'm on the knees of my heart for the first time with my
ear to the air vent. For the first time I hear what God's word says, I
repented, God opened my eyes, gave me a new heart, and put his Holy Spirit in
me (Ezekiel 30: 25-27). Immediately I experienced forgiveness and peace…the
backpack of sin and guilt is gone. I have no more need of ‘fig leaves’ to cover
my sin. The blood of Jesus did it all.”
“An hour later they led me out of the hole, and I got a burning
desire to read God’s Word. I see Tony and I find out it was a mistake for him
to be in the hole and he fought it all the way. But God was in control, and He
knew his child Phillip was ‘gonna’ die if He didn't get Tony there quick. He
knew I was finally broken. Are you broken yet? What more will it take in your
life? God simply wants you to see your helplessness without him.”
I can identify with Phil. Oh, my life had never spiraled out of
control like his, and my sinfulness was mild in comparison, but sin has no
degrees, and like Phil I too had an empty hole in my heart that could only be
filled with God’s love.
If you have that same emptiness, Jesus can fill it. If you have a
broken heart, God can heal it. If you want a changed life, you can do as Phil
did and as I did when I knelt beside my bunk in 1962 at a Fellowship of
Christian Athletes Conference in Lake Geneva, Wisc.
Paul writes. “If anyone be in Christ, he becomes a new creature.
The old has passed away, and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If you want to experience a newness of life, a radical change from
the inside out, I encourage you to do as I did in following the ABC’s of
conversion. Acknowledge you are a sinner, Believe Jesus died for you
sins, and Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life. If you do, it
will be the greatest decision you will ever make.
Yours in faith and friendship,
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