From Dan's Desk

As most of you well know, it has been a really tough few weeks for our church family.  First of all, we lost two great church family members, Gary Ashlock and Helen Smith.  They will both be deeply missed by us all.  Secondly, the fact of someone slipping into the church office at some point and stealing all the cash out of the bank bag ($181) and also stealing a church check, forging it and trying to cash it at the bank.  Fortunately, the teller at the bank was really paying attention and saw the signature on the check wasn’t right and refused to cash it.  The person (and not someone we know) took off leaving the check there.  Because of the theft, a police report had to be filed and they are investigating at this time.  This person must be caught before they get a chance to steal from someone else, possibly someone it would hurt badly.  Now, do we hate this person, want to do this person harm for what they did to us?  Absolutely not!!  Our greatest desire is to see this person change their life, stop doing what is wrong and turn to doing what is right!  But, they will still need to suffer the consequences of the bad choices they made. I have been privileged to do some prison ministry while working with the church both in Tecumseh and Newcastle, OK.  We would go on Sundays and hold worship services for those who were members of the Lord’s church.  While there I was visiting with one of the men and he told me that being caught and sent to prison was the best thing that ever happened to him.  Hearing that really caught me off guard, I never expected to hear that.  I asked him why, how that could be?  He told me that he had been raised in the church but left the Lord and wanted nothing to do with the church.  He got involved in cattle rustling, was caught and sent to prison.  He decided to attend one of the services being held by some from the church.  It was then it really dawned on him what he had done and how horrible his circumstances really were - not because of being in prison but because he was without God in his life.  This man repented of his sins and was restored to Christ and was serving Him faithfully to the best of his ability while in prison.  Notice, he still had to suffer the consequences of his actions but, he was faithfully serving the Lord.  Then he told me something else that caught me off guard.  He looked at me and said, “Soon as I get out of here, I’m coming back!”  I said, “do what?”  He said, “Yes, I’m coming back, I’m coming back as a prison minister!”  You know what, he did!
The whole point of this brethren is this, we never know what good we can do regardless of the circumstances.  We must stand for God, stand for what is right!  We must also hold people accountable for their actions but, we must also be ready at every point to be ready to reach out to them with the gospel of Christ.
 
Until next week, I love you all,
Dan