Last Easter, Prison Fellowship Ministries® President and CEO, Jim Liske, visited the Central Florida Reception, a large prison camp with different wings for prisoners who need hospice care or are too young to be housed with the general population.
In the chapel, Jim preached about Timothy, who grew up without a father, and told the young men, “No one is disqualified from God’s grace.”
Jim spent some time with men in the prison’s infirmary, where seriously injured and terminally ill prisoners serve out their sentences. One prisoner named Michael wore a helmet to prevent further injury to his brain. Weighed down by unthinkable guilt, he was serving 40 years for a drunk driving accident that killed his best friend.
Michael broke down in tears at Jim’s message of grace. “I’m the one who should be dead,” he cried.
Jim explained that the Lord had a purpose for keeping him alive, and that through God’s sacrifice of His Son, Michael could have the life-changing gift of forgiveness.
What an amazing discovery: Michael heard the Gospel message and realized God still loved him despite his past!
Jesus Is Risen
There are so many prisoners who are starving for hope and held captive by their sin like Michael was.
This is why there is no better place to share the Easter story than in prisons, where men and women are waiting to hear about the freedom they can experience because Christ paid the penalty for their crimes on the cross.
Chuck Colson, the late founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, began the tradition of spending Resurrection Sunday in prison each year, and now Jim Liske carries on the tradition for Prison Fellowship® — visiting with prisoners, worshiping alongside them, and teaching the Good News that Jesus rose from the grave so we could have eternal life.
The price that Jesus paid on the cross is very tangible for those in prison. Although they are serving time in a physical prison, the realization that they can be freed from their spiritual prison of guilt and sin is the best news they’ve ever heard.
Easter is a time to rejoice over this fact – to share the Gospel with others so they might know the joy and the freedom waiting for them.
Spread the Good News
This year on Easter weekend, Prison Fellowship will be running a number of in-prison events in various parts of the country to celebrate the restorative power of the resurrection. Jim is excited to be visiting three prisons in Illinois with several other members of the Prison Fellowship staff and ministry partners. He’ll be encouraging prisoners and revealing the life-changing truth that God loved them enough to sacrifice His Son so they could have new life.
Jim says, “It’s always wonderful to worship with prisoners. I feel like it’s a foretaste of heaven, when God’s restored people will worship as one, no longer preoccupied with any of the things that divide us now on earth. I especially love to worship behind bars on Easter …”
Would you ask God to prepare the way before us this Easter? Pray that this Resurrection Sunday worship will be a sweet sound to our Savior. Pray that hearts will awaken to God’s redeeming love. And pray that prisoners will find new purpose and new life in Jesus as they learn about the gift of forgiveness. In everything we do, we are dependent on God and on your prayers and support.
If you would like to join Prison Fellowship in bringing the Gospel into prisons across the country all year-round, please visit prisonfellowship.org/programs/evangelism to see how you can volunteer or give a gift. Your involvement will help introduce thousands of prisoners to the only One who can radically transform their hearts. Together, we can make strides for God’s Kingdom this year.