Did you know you’ve been convicted to death? Take a look around, you’re sitting smack dab in the middle of death row.
Do I have your attention?

Our women’s Precepts study was last night, and like we always do, we end praying together.

When the circle got around to our host, she simply requested prayer for salvation for a number of inmates that she’s been ministering to. This lady has an awesome prison outreach program and spends time weekly ministering to criminals of various backgrounds and convicted of a wide range of crimes. She asks regularly for their hearts to turn to Christ and we pray weekly for them.

Lately she’s been working a lot with prisoners on death row. She told us how she’s been particularly convicted about the time-critical nature of their situation… of their eternity. In these people’s cases, in theory they KNOW when the end of their life will be. They can plan on it. The time has been set. Their eternity is at hand and  it is an extremely sobering reality.

Glenda has such a heart for this population and it shows in her dedication to visiting and ministering to them, in her prayers for them. This is not the population I’ve been called to necessarily but I love watching her and hearing her stories of the ground she tills for the Kingdom.

Last night Glenda went further in her requests though. She took me off guard by the new appeal- “Sure, it’s fine that we pray for the salvation of those sitting on death row, awaiting their demise… but aren’t we ALL on death row?”

She went further-

Aren’t we all born under a death conviction?

The truth of that statement hit my heart firmly. It’s something we as  Christians talk about a lot- praying for unbelievers. But the cold, hard truth is that she’s exactly right- we are ALL born with a death sentence. We just don’t have the luxury of knowing when that sentence will expire.

We are born guilty. We are born into sin. We are born with a death sentence already assigned.

Like it or not, this is the truth.  And we have choices- we can ignore the truth, we can search for a loophole in the system (I’ll give you a hint- it doesn’t exist!), we can cross our fingers and hope to personally present our case to God at the Pearly Gates (good luck with that…), or we can find someone with the proper experience and credentials to defend us.

We’re up against an eternal life sentence of either heaven or hell.

I suggest the last choice.

Today I urge you dear ones- What have you done about the sentence of just penalty that you live under?

Do you have a Defender to plead your cause before the ultimate Judge or are you planning on approaching the Most High on your own?

Who in your life is facing their eternity without the proper defense? Who do you need to give your ‘Jesus Defender card’ to?

We may not have the same time frame of death that those on death row do, I would venture to say not many (or any!) of us know the time or hour of our passing into eternity. Do not let the unknown timing mask the very present and very real sentence we live under.

For our own eternal sentence is no different than those sitting on death row.

Thank you for taking the time to read my heart today. Please comment below with thoughts and ruminations of where your walk is today. Please share and follow if this blesses you!