| November 23, 200
Open letter to everyone: It's been perhaps a year since I contributed to Janice's website. I've since lived in several different prisons and visited others, and finally ended up here at FCI Phoenix. During that time I've seen God do miracles, and I've also seen lots of inmates live their humdrum lives without experiencing God. I've also seen lots of inmates trying to use God or religion to patch up themselves, and I've recognized clearer what one of the major problems is that we are facing. The problem is so simple and so obvious, and yet it is not being recognized by most of us who go to church! Now let me change focus for a moment. An event is more important than the movie made about it. The movie, in turn is more important than the review about it. Likewise, in line with what was most important during this last year, I've been focused more on living than on writing. If a person can experience God's presence, that person will know that God is real. He doesn't need to be talked into believing in God. How do we encourage effective prayer in our lives? How do we encourage the best to come out of people? How do we see what God is doing in our fellow man's life? God is no respecter of persons. He'll deal with everyone, including people some of us in our flesh might want to write off. If we can line ourselves up where we should be (in the Spirit of God), we will naturally pull people in the right direction. The Christian way to improve ourselves is surprisingly not to try to--but to die to our self. Quit trying to cure, to reform, to rehabilitate your old self. Die to yourself. Let God bury and trash your life, and then let Christ live in your life, and resist the temptation to pull your stinky old self out of the garbage. Don't return to the vomit like a dog. As the Spirit of God lives His life in you, you will easily become the person God wants. Why not? God will agree with what His Spirit is doing, of course. If you don't like this straightforward method, feel free to try everything, go to every sermon, counselor, pastor, psychiatrist, conference, treatment center, and prison you want; but you will never find the formula to reconstruct the old you into a Christ-like person. The Christian life is lived by surrender and submission to God. This is why the Word of God says things like "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:17. And, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6. Paul wrote by the Spirit of God, "I do not frustrate the grace of God. . ." Galatians 2:21. How did he allow God to give him success in life? He let God trash his life and let God live Christ's life through the Spirit in him. Check this out. Paul wrote, "For me to live is Christ." Philippians 1:21. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Galatians 2:20. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3. This is why he wrote from first-hand experience, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Romans 6:6. Buy what if we trash our lives, but God doesn't replace it with anything worthwhile? If we step out in faith, we will experience God. Of course that question comes from the perspective of someone lacking faith in God, lacking a real experience. Those who have stepped out in faith can honestly say with Paul, "Yet the inward man is renewed day by day." 2 Corinthians 4:16. If we know that we have placed ourselves into God's hands we can have the attitude: "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16. God, I am a weak sinner. I have no strength. I am resting in your works. I am resting in your promise and depending on you. Help me! Save me! Give me wisdom! Have mercy on me! No matter where we are, no matter how cruel Big Brother may be, we can draw on God's strength. There is hope. There is opportunity. There is life. So ". . .let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon you. . ." Psalm 90:17. # Fritz Springmeier, #65941-065
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