It's no secret to those who know me that I'm friends with a lot of guys in prison. Today I found out about another—an old friend from high school who is currently sitting in prison awaiting trial for possibly killing his girlfriend. Somehow this one feels different. Maybe because I never knew any of the guys I now know in prison before they were ever incarcerated. My heart breaks for him and his family. And I wish I was closer to Los Angeles, so I could go visit him...and just catch up.
I've known several incarcerated men over the past 16 years since deciding to start a grassroots prison ministry. This decision takes me inside the walls of a local prison each Friday morning when I get to hang out with a small group of guys for a weekly Bible Study. Sometimes we open the Bible, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we talk about sports, politics, TV, music, movies...anything really, that a group of guys would talk about it. But my number one goal is to cut through all the religiosity that so many of us have been living under most of our lives. I want to get to the bottom of it, and find out what's real, what's not...and what really matters.
The thing I find the most common is the thinking that if you're good enough, you'll make it to Heaven. That if somehow God deems you worthy of salvation, then you'll receive it. But ultimately, there's no way of knowing until you actually meet Him face to face, so you better do your darndest to be good! To me, this flat out disregards the need for Jesus to have died on the cross. Because of what Jesus did, my entrance into Heaven is no longer on my shoulders—it's on His. Grace is a free gift. No strings attached.
