Over this year I have been visiting a friend in Wandsworth prison. Just about every week I have gone to the prison, sat in the visits hall and we have talked and prayed together. Even though he is the one who’s been stuck in prison, I have been uplifted and encouraged so much by our meeting together and it has been a real source of strength to me in living out God’s calling to me in the ‘freedom’ that I have on the outside.
I was privileged last week to be able to pick him up from that prison and drive him to another prison outside of London (a category D open prison – for the transfer inmates who qualify are released on licence from one prison to make their own way to the new prison and must report in by a certain time.)
The experience was both moving and challenging. It was moving to see my friend be visibly overwhelmed by a freedom he hadn’t experienced for a long time. Little things that I take for granted in everyday life were an emotional experience as he remembered, just for a few hours, what life outside of prison was like. Trees, Hills, Birds, Houses, McDonalds reststops and lunch whereever and whenever we wanted to take it on the way, were overwhelming things for him. I was glad to be able to share the experience with him, and it will be a memory I will treasure for the rest of my life.
But it was challenging too…and here’s the big thought:
When was the last time I was overwhelmed by the freedom I have in Christ?
Jesus said “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed”, and then he gave up his life so that we might receive this freedom. Yet do I truly act free? Do I understand the freedom I have? Am I overwhelmed by what Jesus has done for me – raiding the prison, setting me free from the chains that were keeping me captive, and giving me a new “Anything is possibly for him who believes” life.
Or do I forget the freedom that I have: either taking it for granted, or allowing the enemy to deceive me into stepping back into the prison and shutting the door?
The world is bound up in all kinds of mess, and what it needs most are a people who live as if they are truly free. A people who are daily overwhelmed by the freedom they have in Christ. A people who exercise that freedom by going into their world with a faith that “I can do anything through him who gives me strength” and who set about the task of helping others find freedom in Christ.
So, are you free? Do you need to be overwhelmed by a fresh revelation of that freedom? Are there any areas of your life where you’re actually in bondage and you need to be set free? There’s good news for you:
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” – Jesus in John 8v36
