Dear Friends,
Has this summer started off for you like a Fiery Sauna?
Well, we in the south most certainly are having our own private sauna days! All we have to do is walk out our door to be enveloped by the hottest, most humid blast of a thick, wet blanket of heat ever! Wow. But, I’m asking the fire of the Spirit to pursue me instead, and to please help me be content in all of our circumstances. And He is, by reminding me that we are here for such a day as this, for such a time as this, and for such a place as this! There’s nothing like the Spirit to tell you like it is! However, if anyone wants to trade houses in the summer with us, where you can come to the beach and we can go minister up in the cooler mountain breezes somewhere, just let us know! Ha…ha! 😊
Seriously though, we have had a wonderful month here in our local jail. In the services now, about half of them attending are women. So, I too have been going in there more often to help minister with Ken and our team. Our messages last month tended to deal mostly with what REAL Christianity looks like. Every time we ask them all, ”Who in here considers themselves to be a Christian”? They almost always all raise their hands. So, this past week I taught on Colossians 3:3… I pointedly looked them straight in the face and said, “Well then, you have died”…And most of them looked at us with a raised eyebrow and confusion on their faces. Then Ken went on to explain that that meant that they were dead to their old self. Then I read the scripture, “For you have died and now your life is hidden with Christ in God”. A couple of them knew exactly what we were saying, because they have become students of the word. And yes, hopefully, they are actually beginning to die to self! And that word “hidden” in that scripture means “to be concealed by covering”…and the covering is their “clothing themselves” in Jesus Christ upon salvation. We asked, “Is your old self dead like the scripture says? Are you reborn into a new creature after accepting the payment of Christ’s blood for your sins”? We left them with that thought that night, hopefully to be anointed into their spirit by the Holy One.
When we were leaving, one of the women came up to me and told me she had been studying her Bible. She asked if God might be speaking to her if, while reading it, all of a sudden she realized that it was truth? I exclaimed, “ yes”! So, we left there with happy hearts and being reminded that God is sooo faithful. We only plant the seeds; He sees to their growth!
Please be praying for us as we go again to Dixon Correctional Institute AND Angola Prison this month. The team will be doing 7 services in all. Please be praying for the conviction of Colossians 3:3 over the inmates.
Thank you ALL for still being on track with us, and for supporting us for so long
and so well! We are all friends of Jesus… “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. Hope you are loving others as you are being loved!
God bless you,
Ken & Cindy