Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 169

Teaching in Jail

 

Today’s guest blog is from writer Jill Kandel. Nanci and I spent ten days with Jill and her family 26 years ago, when they were in England after having served in humanitarian work in Zambia. Jill has been teaching journal writing to female inmates at a local jail for almost two years. Since prison outreach is close to our hearts, with EPM sending hundreds of my books a month to prisoners, and corresponding with them, I asked Jill to share about her ministry there. I think you’ll appreciate this! —Randy

When I tell people that I teach at a county jail they are often curious. "What's it like?" and "Do you feel safe?" are frequently asked questions. Mostly people want to know if it does any good. "Really? Why bother?" is often the attitude.

My reasons for working in jail are multiple, but they are not complex.

I teach classes in jail because it's good for my community. Of the 7,800 men and women who come through our jail each year, 97% of them will stay within the county after they are released. People in jail are people. They have lives and connections they return to.

Our jail chaplain program coordinates men and women around our city who go into jail to teach GED, Moms-in-Touch, Celebrate Recover, Women's Bible Study, Men's Bible Study, Dad's-in-Touch, Anger Management, Crown Financial Services, Alpha Program, Knitting, Stamping, Art, and Journal Writing classes. Inmates who attend emerge from jail better skilled to live productive lives. The jail chaplain program also provides transitional housing, food and jobs for returning citizens and helps them get on their feet, offering them a church home and stability. This cuts recidivism rates and helps produce citizens who honor God with their life choices.  

I teach classes in jail because it is what God has gifted me to do. Years ago, I was asked to write a story about a young mother who'd been a meth addict and served time in county jail. She met the Lord in jail and had been drug free for five years. After the story came out, the jail programs officer asked if I'd be interested in teaching journal writing skills to female inmates. I said no. But God had other plans. Over the course of the next year, God changed my heart. I called the programs officer back and said yes. I've been going to jail once a week to teach journal writing skills to female inmates ever since.

I used to think, "Stamping classes? Knitting classes? Why would they be helpful?" But the men and women who teach the classes are believers and God has called them. Because of the classes the inmates have hand-made scarves to give to their children at Christmas. They have hand-made cards for birthdays and holidays. The conversations that flow around the room during the classes are uplifting and God-honoring. "When I told one man what a great job he'd done knitting his scarf," one teacher said, "He told me it was the first time in his life anyone had ever told him he'd done a good job."

God takes all of His Gifting, whether it is writing, or financial knowledge, or being a great mom, and He uses the gifts He gives.

I teach classes in jail because God has called me to serve. When I first started teaching, I viewed myself as a volunteer, one of the approximate 62.6 million people in America who volunteered through or for an organization each year. Over the years, I've come to a different understanding. God doesn't call us to volunteer. He calls us to serve. Volunteer work is work done for a program, a foundation, or an institution. Servant-hood is a calling and a mandate. Christ came into our hurting broken world. He asks nothing less of us.

Volunteering  may be fine for a club, but not for the church. Volunteering is something free people do. Servants, on the other hand, can only humbly and obediently respond to their master's command. "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45

I teach classes in jail because it blesses me. Jail is a profoundly moving place to work. God is there. There is little pretense and great need. God meets us in that room filled with women dressed in orange. Working in jail has become one of the great blessings in my life. God not only uses His gifts for His glory and Kingdom, but He uses them for our own joy and growth.

The class I teach has about twenty women each week. This week we read Bible verses concerning the Biblical concept of hope as 'certainty' from Hebrews 11, Jeremiah 29, and Romans 15. We have hope because God is faithful, not because we are. I have heard women say that jail is the best thing that ever happened to them. I have seen women turn their hearts to God. I have seen more miracles in jail than anywhere else on this planet. It is a holy place. It is a place where God is at work and that is an amazing thing to behold.

I teach classes in jail because I want to be found faithful. The bottom line—the one that gives me an eternal perspective in my day to day life—is this: When my life is over and I stand before the Lord, He isn't going to give me the volunteer of the year award. He won't say, "Thanks for your time and nice job by-the-way." The words I want to hear Him say are very different and much more meaningful. I want to hear Him say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." It's the word 'my' in that sentence that gets me. Someday I will hear Him call me His Own. 

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Keeping an Eternal Perspective in Times of Disappointment

 

In signing a book for a teenage boy, I wrote, “Trust Jesus—He’ll never let you down.” I hope he didn’t understand me to mean, “Your life will always go as you want it to.” I meant that even when life doesn’t go your way, Jesus remains faithful and works in your best interests. Life will bring countless disappointments, but that’s very different than God letting you down. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

If we keep before ourselves the big picture, we’ll say with Paul in Romans 8, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And we will proclaim, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of Christ” (verses 31, 39).

God uses disappointments and suffering to train us to share His holiness and righteousness. Not all discipline is designed to correct sin. Its purpose may be to cultivate righteousness. An athlete doesn’t train just to fix a problem; he trains to improve his condition.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:7–1 1)

God gives us a clear reason for disciplining us: “that we may share in his holiness.” This discipline helps us to turn from sin. Knowing that God is working to “later on” make us more Christlike can help us to endure the pain of disappointment and to keep an eternal perspective.

The farmer works long, hard hours each day, anticipating the eventual harvest. This coming harvest motivates him and brings him joy. Looking at our suffering and difficult times in life is like looking at row after row of crops that need weeding and watering. It seems like endless work. Yet God calls upon us to look beyond the day’s and season’s work to the coming harvest.

Scripture promises, “God disciplines us for our good.” He doesn’t miscalculate, doesn’t make mistakes, and will never look back at what he brings and allows in our lives and say, “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do that.”

As athletes look to the crown and farmers to the harvest, so we who experience disappointment in life  should look to our eternal rewards from God’s good hand.

We all have dreams but often don’t see them realized. Situations in life don’t always turn out as we had envisioned. We become discouraged and lose hope. But as Christ’s apprentices, we must learn certain disciplines. Apprentices in training must work hard and study hard to prepare for the next test or challenge. Apprentices may wish for three weeks of vacation or more pay to pursue outside interests. But the Master may see that these would not lead to success. He may override his apprentices’ desires in order that they might learn perspective and patience, which will serve them well in the future. While the young apprentices experience the death of their dreams, the Master is shaping them to dream greater dreams that they will one day live out on the New Earth with enhanced wisdom, skill, appreciation, and joy.

Through the challenges and disappointments you now face, what dreams might God be preparing you to live out on the New Earth?

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Ten Practical Ways to Control Spending and Wisely Manage God’s Money

 

The following guidelines are designed to help you exercise self-control in spending, become a better steward of God’s resources, and free funds to use for Kingdom purposes:

1. Examine every purchase in light of its ministry potential. 

We must weigh the value of every item we buy against what the same money could have done if used another way—for instance, to feed the hungry or to evangelize the lost. I don’t say this to induce a guilt trip but to indicate the obvious—whenever money is used one way, it prevents it from being used another. None of us should impose our personal standards on others, nor on the standards of God. We should ask God to direct us when it comes to handling His money.

2. Pray before you spend. 

When something’s a legitimate need, God will provide. How often do we take matters into our own hands and spend impulsively before asking God to furnish it for us? Often we either buy what we want or forgo what we want when there’s a third alternative: asking God to provide it for us. If He doesn’t provide it, fine—He knows best.

Setting a waiting period gives God the opportunity to provide what we want, to provide something better, or to show us that we don’t need it and how to use the money differently.

3. Realize that nothing is a good deal if you can’t afford it. 

Paying $250,000 for a house that is worth $300,000 sounds like an excellent deal. Paying $80 for a pair of barely used skis that cost $400 new seems like a great deal. But if we can’t afford them, it simply doesn’t matter. It’s always a bad choice to spend money on a “good deal” we can’t afford.

4. Recognize that God isn’t behind every good deal. 

Suppose we can afford it. Does that mean we should buy it? Self-control often means turning down good deals on things we really want because God may have better plans for His money.

5. Understand the difference between spending money and saving it. 

Saving is setting aside money for a future purpose; it stays in our wallet or in the bank. It can be used for other purposes, including our needs or the needs of others. Money that’s spent leaves our hands and is no longer at our disposal. If we buy an $80 sweater on sale for $30, we’ve spent $30. If we think we’ve just saved $50, we simply don’t understand the concept of saving!

6. Look at the long-term cost, not just the short-term expense. 

If something breaks, we pay to get it repaired. If we buy a new car, we fret about dents and buy insurance to fix them. Count the cost in advance. Everything ends up being more expensive than it first appears.

7. Understand and resist the manipulative nature of advertising. 

Advertising is seductive and manipulative. It programs us. We must consciously reject its claims and counter them with God’s Word, which tells us what we really do and don’t need. We should withdraw ourselves from advertising that fosters greed or discontent. That may mean less television, less flipping through sales catalogs and newspaper ads, and less aimless wandering through shopping malls.

8. Learn to walk away from things you want but don’t need. 

Once I received a large, unexpected check. After giving a portion to the Lord, I still had $2,000 left. Before long, I was out looking at something I’d wanted but had never been able to justify. The price tag read $1,995. But in my heart there wasn’t peace when I considered what that money could do for God’s Kingdom. Finally, I decided I shouldn’t make the purchase. When I turned and walked away, something unexpected happened. I was suddenly filled with a deep sense of relief and joy. To be free of it was the first blessing; to know the eternal difference that amount would make was the second blessing.

9. Realize that little things add up. 

One dollar here and ten dollars over there; a hamburger here and mocha there; movie rentals and rounds of golf. These things may seem inconsequential, but they can add up to hundreds of dollars per month and thousands per year that could be used for Kingdom purposes. Until we fix some of our spending habits, we’ll never be able to divert the flow of money for higher purposes.

10. Set up a budget and live by it. 

Two practical steps can greatly help us get a grip on our spending: recording expenditures and making a budget. These steps will help us detect problem areas by clarifying our spending habits. This will improve our mental and marital health because financial disorder is one of the leading causes of personal and familial stress.

Living on a budget will free up lots of money. When I was a pastor, I met with families who followed a budget and did fine on a very meager income. I met with others who made much more and were always in financial crisis.

It’s not how much money we make, but how we handle it that matters. And it all begins by recognizing the money we’re handling is not our own. It belongs to another, before whom we will one day stand, and from whom the best words we could ever hear are these: “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master’s joy.”

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Afraid? Of What?

 

In my novel Safely Home, while facing martyrdom, Li Quan quotes a poem called “Afraid.” A reader recently asked about the origin of that poem. On his blog, Tim Challies shares this explanation:

The poem, entitled “Afraid?” was written by Presbyterian missionary E.H. Hamilton following the recent martyrdom [in 1931] of one of his colleagues, J.W. Vinson, at the hands of rebel soldiers in northern China. A small Chinese girl who escaped from the bandits related the incident that provided the inspiration for Hamilton’s poem.

“Are you afraid?” the bandits asked Vinson as they menacingly waved a gun in front of him.

“No,” he replied with complete assurance. “If you shoot, I go straight to heaven.”

His decapitated body was found later.

E.H. Hamilton wrote:

Afraid? Of what?
To feel the spirit’s glad release?
To pass from pain to perfect peace,
The strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
Afraid to see the Saviour’s face,
To hear His welcome, and to trace,
The glory gleam from wounds of grace,
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
A flash - a crash - a pierced heart;
Brief darkness - Light - O Heaven’s art!
A wound of His a counterpart!
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To enter into Heaven’s rest,
And yet to serve the Master blessed?
From service good to service best?
Afraid? Of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To do by death what life could not -
Baptize with blood a stony plot,
Till souls shall blossom from the spot?
Afraid? Of that?

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The Deepest Prayer of My Heart This Christmas

 

My prayer is that people would understand that Jesus is the person they were made by and made for. That they would understand that He loved them enough to go to the cross for them and pay the price for their sins so that they could live forever with Him on the New Earth, the eternal Heaven.

There’s a true story of a Christ-loving man who lay dying. His son asked, “Dad, how do you feel?”

His father replied: “Son, I feel like a little boy on Christmas Eve.”

Christmas is coming. We live our lives between the first Christmas and the second. We look back to that first Christmas and the life of Jesus on the earth for some 33 years—but we look forward to the Christmas in which the resurrected Christ will return and we, His resurrected people, will live with Him forever on the New Earth. And right when we think, “It doesn’t get any better than this”....it will!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Nanci and me, and from all the staff at Eternal Perspective Ministries.

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Why the Cross?

No man understands the Scriptures, unless he be acquainted with the cross. —Martin Luther

In part one of this thoughtful two part video series on the atonement, EPM’s Julia Stager talks about why the cross was necessary:

If you’re interested in watching the rest of Julia’s videos, you can subscribe to her YouTube channel: Crossover.

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Will We Travel in Time in Heaven?

Even though I believe we’ll live in time in Heaven, God is certainly capable of bending time and opening doors in time’s fabric for us. Perhaps we’ll be able to travel back and stand alongside angels in the invisible realm, seeing events as they happened on Earth. Maybe we’ll learn the lessons of God’s providence through direct observation. Can you imagine being there as Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount? Perhaps you will be.

Want to see the crossing of theRed Sea? Want to be there when Daniel’s three friends emerge from the fiery furnace? It would be simple for God to open the door to the past.

Because God is not limited by time, He may choose to show us past events as if they were presently happening. We may be able to study history from a front-row seat. Perhaps we’ll have opportunity to see the lives of our spiritual and physical ancestors lived out on Earth.

Usually we’re not able to see God’s immediate responses to our prayers, but in Heaven God may permit us to see what happened in the spiritual realm as a result of His answers to our prayers. In the Old Testament an angel comes to the prophet Daniel and tells him what happened as the result of his prayers: “As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you” (Daniel 9:23).

Will God show us in Heaven what almost happened to us on Earth? Will He take us back to see what would have happened if we’d made other choices? Perhaps. Will the father whose son had cerebral palsy see what would have happened if he’d followed his temptation to desert his family? Would this not fill his heart with gratitude to God for His sovereign grace?

Will I see how missing the exit on the freeway last night saved me from a crash? Will I learn how getting delayed in the grocery store last week saved my wife from a fatal accident? How many times have we whined and groaned about the very circumstances God used to save us? How many times have we prayed that God would make us Christlike, then begged Him to take from us the very things He sent to make us Christlike? How many times has God heard our cries when we imagined He didn’t? How many times has He said no to our prayers when saying yes would have harmed us and robbed us of good?

Perhaps we’ll see the ripple effects of our small acts of faithfulness and obedience. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, perhaps we’ll see how we affected others, and how living our lives differently might have influenced them. (May God give us the grace to see this now while we can still revise and edit our lives.)

If we believe in God’s sovereignty, we must believe God would be glorified through our better understanding of human history. We’ll no longer have to cling by faith to “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God” (Romans8:28, NASB). We will see history as definitive documentation of that reality.

Does this discussion seem to you a bit bizarre? Consider it further. Surely you agree that God is capable of sending resurrected people back in time or of pulling back the curtain of time and allowing us to see the past. If He couldn’t do this, He wouldn’t be God. So the question is whether He might have good reasons to do so. One reason might be to show us His providence, grace, and goodness in our lives and the lives of others. Wouldn’t that bring God glory? Wouldn’t it cause us to praise and exalt Him for his sovereign grace? This is surely a high and God-glorifying response. Couldn’t this fit His revealed purpose “that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7)?

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Don’t run away with the idea that when I speak of the resurrection of the body I mean merely that the blessed dead will have excellent memories of their sensuous experiences on earth. I mean it the other way round; that memory as we know it is a dim foretaste, a mirage even, of a power which the soul, or rather Christ in the soul . . . will exercise hereafter. It need no longer . . . be private to the soul in which it occurs. I can now communicate to you the fields of my boyhood—they are building-estates today—only imperfectly, by words. Perhaps the day is coming when I can take you for a walk through them.” [i]

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[i] C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963), 121–22.

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Live for the Line, Not the Dot

 

Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23). He makes it clear that our vision is faulty. We need His help to see our life through different eyes—eyes focused on the eternal. Physical vision is used here as a metaphor for spiritual vision, or perspective—the way we look at life.

As believers in Christ, our theology gives us perspective. It tells us that this life is the preface—not the book. It’s the preliminaries—not the main event. It’s the tune-up—not the concert.

Just prior to this, in Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus speaks about storing up treasures in Heaven, not earth…something that requires an eternal perspective. I think of our lives in terms of a dot and a line, signifying two phases. Our present life on earth is the dot. It begins. It ends. It’s brief. However, from the dot, a line extends that goes on forever. That line is eternity, which Christians will spend in heaven. Right now we’re living in the dot. But what are we living for? The shortsighted person lives for the dot. The person with perspective lives for the line.

That’s the heart behind Eternal Perspective Ministries: investing in the things that will last for eternity. To learn more about living for the line, not the dot, watch this short video:

Would you like to support EPM’s joyful efforts to reach more people with the message of living in light of eternity? We invite you to partner with us in prayer, and if the Lord leads you, by giving to our ministry. (If you'd like to make a year-end, tax-deductible donation to EPM, please note that donations postmarked no later than December 31, or received online by 11:59 p.m. PT on December 31, will be included on this year’s tax receipts.)

Nanci and I and our EPM staff want to say a heartfelt thanks for your partnership in the Gospel of Jesus!

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Prayer, Dependence, and Our Unhindered Access to God’s Throne

It has always been difficult for me to spend great lengths of time in prayer, and sometimes it’s been a cause of discouragement. On the other hand, God has graciously taught me about prayer and dependence on Him throughout the day. I often get on my knees for brief periods in my office. I pray as I hear of needs. Nanci and I stop and pray together various times throughout the day. I ask God to help me see prayer as an adventure in which I come into His presence and behold Him, and become so absorbed with Him that I don’t want to do anything else. I’ve had tastes of that, but long for more.

I believe that the more conscious my dependence on Christ, the more I will pray without ceasing and obey Scripture’s command to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18). 

Preaching on 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing,” Charles Spurgeon said:

Our Lord Jesus Christ in these words assures you that you may pray without ceasing. There is no time when we may not pray. You have here permission given to come to the mercy-seat when you will, for the veil of the Most Holy place is rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and our access to the mercy-seat is undisputed and indisputable.

…The dead of night is not too late for God; the breaking of the morning, when the first grey light is seen, is not too early for the Most High; at midday he is not too busy; and when the evening gathers he is not weary with his children's prayers. "Pray without ceasing," is, if I read it aright, a most sweet and precious permit to the believer to pour out his heart at all times before the Lord.

We’re told in Hebrews 10:19 that “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.”

These verses tell us something wonderful beyond comprehension: the blood of Jesus has bought us full access to God’s throne room and his Most Holy Place. Even now, He welcomes us to come there in prayer. In eternity, when we’re resurrected beings, not only will He permit us to enter His presence in prayer, but He will welcome us to live in His presence as resurrected beings.

I often think about how wonderful it will be on the New Earth, as resurrected beings, to see God’s face, to consciously delight in everything around me as a direct extension of God’s magnificence. I will never have to guard my eyes, restrain my thoughts, question my motives, or wonder what else I need to confess. In short, I’ll be free of my sin-tainted self, and fully free to be the Christ-empowered righteous self that God designed me to be, in continual conscious recognition of Him. This is at the heart of prayer, I think, and I ask God to help me taste that now not only in the short sessions throughout the day, but also in longer prayer times as well.

Occasionally EPM sends out specific prayer requests related to my writing and speaking ministry. Nanci and I deeply appreciate those who pray for us and for EPM, and often I am profoundly aware of the difference prayer makes in my life and writing and speaking. If you would like to join our prayer team, you can sign up here. If you feel led to do that, we will thank God and you for participating in our lives and ministry.

“No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me.” —Charles Spurgeon

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A Great Message by Dan Franklin on the Problem of Evil and Suffering

 

The problem of evil and suffering is something I’ve read many books concerning, and heard some great presentations on. I’ve written on this problem and spoken on it myself. But I’ve never listened to any treatment of it better than this one by Dan Franklin, teaching pastor at Life Bible Fellowship in Upland, California.

Dan is married to my daughter Karina, and the father of three of my grandsons, but that’s not the main reason he’s one of my favorite teachers. He was one of our speaking pastors at my church for years, and I really miss his teaching. But since he speaks more at the church he’s at now, I’m able to hear him more online, and that’s my consolation. I highly recommend this message:

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From Eternal Perspective Ministries

Interested in reading more on the problem of evil and suffering?

Check out Randy’s books:

If God Is Good
The Goodness of God
90 Days of God’s Goodness

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