By Brent Richards, Inmate Outreach Services Manager at The City Mission 

You hear the blare of the ambulance’s siren as it races down the road to get the injured or sick the care they desperately need.  You don’t know the person’s circumstances or condition, but you’re glad they’re going to the emergency room to get help.  After all, that could be you someday.  That’s what jail and prison ministry is like.  We can’t be focused on how someone got there; we have to stay focused on the answer, the best help available for all sinners: It’s Jesus.

Some folks think they’re not sinners even if the Bible says they are.  Sin, in Greek, is a bow and arrow term meaning, “to miss the mark”.  It’s aiming for the bull’s eye but being off by a little or a lot.  Some shoot more accurately at righteousness than others, but no one can reach God’s mark of righteousness.  God explains to us that absolutely all our attempts fall “short of the glory of God”.  Their best shot falls short of the mark. 

To help us understand, God reasons with us through the words of Job. “Truly I know it is so, but how can a man be righteous before God?  If one wishes to contend with Him, He could not answer God one time out of a thousand.”  (Job 9:2-3)  It would not matter if the man questioned is the professor with ten degrees of higher learning the burnout lying in the prison bed; neither can answer even one of God’s questions.  That puts man’s wisdom in perspective.  Man’s wisdom may be distinguishable from our perspective, but when compared to God’s wisdom the wisest of men is indistinguishable from the most foolish. (1 Cor. 1:18-25).

This also helps us realize how incredible God’s righteousness is. The greatest sinner is indistinguishable from the least when compared to the righteousness of God.  No matter how bad a sinner we are, we can receive the gift of righteousness from God (Rom. 3:20-23, 6:23, 10:1-13, 2 Cor. 5:21), and no matter how good a person we are, it’s not good enough.  We still need a Savior, and fortunately, God has provided One (John 3:16).  It’s Jesus.

That’s the message of Inmate Outreach Services in or out of prison walls.

*title taken from Isaiah 61:1:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,”