…I can relate to you.
That’s how I started my message to the inmates at the Rukungiri prison. I continued by explaining how we’re all born into a spiritual prison:
As the creator of everything, God is also the governor over all creation, and his government is like every other government in the fact that it has laws. If you break those laws, you must pay the consequences. You commit the crime, you do the time. Fair enough.
Even while we’re in the prison, though, we continue breaking the laws, adding to our sentence. We quickly rack up a life sentence, two life sentences, ten life sentences, and so on. We have absolutely no hope of ever getting out as the clock keeps on ticking and our downward cycle continues to gain momentum.
The condition we are in is utterly hopeless, and we come to the realization that we’re gonna be in here forever.
And then I told them about the governor’s son:
It’s as if the president’s son were to walk through that gate right now, come up to you, look you in the face, and say, “I’m getting you out.” Wait, can he do that? This is the governor’s son we’re talking about. He has power. This man has authority. The prison guards listen to him. All he has to do is provide an official document on your behalf, and you’re out. You’d be free… free to start a new life. You’re heart lurches back to life as the possibilities begin racing through your mind. Can you imagine finally being released after 20 years of imprisonment?? Once you got out, you’d probably feel like you had just been born again. A whole new life marked with freedom.
That’s the hope Jesus offers us. He is literally our only hope of ever leaving this spiritual prison.
