A small team of us went back into the county jail Monday evening to minister Jesus. We went into our usual 2 cell blocks A & C.When we first entered I visited briefly we a lot of guys who wanted Bibles and of course I handed them some Chick tracts. I love passing out those Chick tracts, they definitely are an awesome tract the guys always ask me more different ones. I guess it’s the comic book part of it they like. Whatever it is they are good seed.
I then sat down in cell with a man who I had the privilege to pray with to receive Jesus as His Lord and Savior, after we embraced and greeted each other we got right into the Word and started sharing and having a good Bible Study time. You see, a lot of what we do in these cell blocks is discipleship and mentoring. Yes, we evangelize but we follow up with these guys and disciple them. The reason I bring this up is to stress an important point and that is that new believers need to be cared for. It would be easy for me to just from cell block to cell block and just minister evangelistically and pray with guys to receive Jesus. But I believe without discipleship and mentoring the enemy, the devil, will draw these guys back to sin, destruction, and a life away from Jesus. We see it happen all the time. The parable of sower talks about only receiving the word for a short time due to not having any root. (Mark 4: 15-17). We help these guys get some “spiritual roots”.
The man I was talking to gets out in a couple of weeks. We’ve made plan to hook up and come to my local Church. One the issues he is struggling with and we talked a lot a bout it is the fact that he is living with a woman who is not his wife. I’m not going to type in here our whole discourse, but be assured that I shared with him exactly what the Bible says about living like this, its called SIN and in fact God calls it fornication. It is sexual sin. When a believer chooses to disobey God and blatantly disobey God they actual are in a very dangerous spot, which can lead to totally walking away from God. Yes! This is serious and we talked intensely about this.
One of things I stressed with this man was that God will empower him to do what’s right. If God expects us to obey and live holy, which He dose, He will give us the ability to do it. – You see were not on our own. We don’t have to obey the Word of God on our own strength. In all reality we cannot anyway. We rely on the empowering strength of God within us. His grace is efficient! God grace empowers us to obey. We talked a lot about that.
I believe when he gets out he is going to do the right thing. I will be praying for him, please keep him lifted up in your prayers. His name is Spencer, He is nineteen and really desiring to follow God with all his heart.
After I prayed with Spencer and everyone else was done ministering we all went to Cell Block C. This cell block we also go into regularly and I have made some real friends here. One guy in particular named Jason. I always make it a point to look him up. He is a young guy around twenty-five with a real desire to serve God with all his heart. In fact he is developing into a real spiritual leader in this cell block.
One of the things he and I have been praying for is that his mom would come in and visit him, as it’s been months since she last came in. Well, guess what? Last week she came in and visited him. He was overjoyed! Man, I was overjoyed.
We talked and got into the Word another brother joined us and we had a great time studying God’s Word.
======BIG NEED:
Some of the inmates having trouble reading small print are asking for large print Bibles. I plan on getting some of these. Also there is a major need for Spanish Bibles and tracts. And some of the guys that are real serious with their walk with Christ are asking for Concordances. I plan on getting some these as well.
If anyone would desire to help with this please message me or go the very bottom of the page is a paypal button for on line giving.
Thanks! ~Steve
====WHAT’S COMING UP:
With the warmer weather we will be going out to the streets on Friday evenings ministering Jesus to whoever God leads us too. We had an incredible time last year ministering on the streets of our city and now with the warmer weather upon us were pumped up to go out again! Please pray for us and for God to prepare the hearts of the people we talk to. We have a team of four to six of us who are going out in the boldness of the Holy Spirit! It’s an amazing thing seeing who God leads you to, because you never know. Last year we ran across atheists, gangs of youth, drunks, homeless people, families walking in the park, police officers, you name it. It’s going to be awesome!!
Also, May 22-26 I will be going on an inner city mission trip to New York City. This will be my second time ministering on the streets in New York as I went in 06’. I’ll be going with RAVEN Ministries for this awesome evangelistic outreach. We’ll be witnessing Jesus at the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Jamaica Queens, Empire State Building and Times Square.
God Bless! and thanks for the prayers!
Steve
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