Download or read book Locked Up with God written by Guy D. Gruters and published by . This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The title of this book reflects that it is a book about being locked up with God. This happened to me during the Vietnam War. I was an American prisoner of war - P.O.W. I spent over five years in a prison, and there I was with God and only God besides a few cellmates. This is mainly a book of the speeches I have given over the last decade or so that reflect my experience as a war prisoner. I have integrated the stories and experience of this period of my life with the faith and experiences of my life since. The talks have been transcribed and placed together here. I have refined and polished them. Some are shorter than others because of the various time constraints. I have selected what I felt were my best. They have been sorted by category as the table of contents reflects. However, I placed the first in its own category and titled it My General Talk. This is the one I most commonly give. It gives a good general overview of my experiences in the Vietnam War and my total dependence on and trust in the Maker. The second category titled Faith all relate to deep spiritual truths that I have grown to love and respect because of my initial experiences as a POW. To get through five years in a prison camp under horrible conditions was a real journey of faith. I returned to this country an entirely different man. I had grown in my faith. I had learned how to trust God, to love Him and to forgive others. These talks reflect what being locked up with God for five years did to me. The third category titled Family and Manhood reflect what has occurred to me and what I hold out as ideal in regard to being a man and a father and husband of a family. I have been through much in my lifetime. I have had and raised a large family. I am now old and have had time to reflect what is important and what means the most. I have also made many mistakes in my life and only by the grace of God have made it to this point and still have a family. This category is given to help young men get off to a good start. The best way to learn is by experience. That is, the experience of others who have been through it and made all the mistakes one can possibly make. This is the case with me. I am offering these three speeches to all young men so that they can profit by my life of having to learn the hard way. If young men can read these, they won't have to fall and struggle as I have had to do. They can fly high and have a very productive life being a man and, if called, also a father and husband of a family. The final category of talks titled War and Patriotism include those that give more detailed stories of my combat and POW experiences in South and North Vietnam. This war is history and most don't even remember it, but reflecting on a war and hearing what a person has experienced who lived through one can help anyone to grow in love of country. The reader can also learn much in case they are ever called to be in a war. Being in the military is a vocation all by itself. It is a vocation of love because a soldier is ready to lay down his or her life for another wherever they are called to serve their country. A soldier must be ready to not only die for others but also suffer as I did and many others did in an enemy prisoner of war compound. This category also includes a talk about leadership. This will help any young man or woman know what it takes to be a great leader. There is also a speech about Lance Sijan and one that was given at an Air Force Base to honor two other Medal of Honor winners, Bud Day and Leo Thorsness. Reflecting about the life of real heroes always does a soldier good, for all soldiers are called to be heroes in their vocation of love. I hope and pray that this book helps our country be great and remain great for ages to come. I will soon die as all do, but words never die. My hope is that these words will go on helping my American brothers and sisters keep America great. May God bless you and our country forever. Amen.

Download or read book Winning the War in Your Mind written by Craig Groeschel and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MORE THAN 500,000 COPIES SOLD! Are your thoughts out of control--just like your life? Do you long to break free from the spiral of destructive thinking? Let God's truth become your battle plan to win the war in your mind! We've all tried to think our way out of bad habits and unhealthy thought patterns, only to find ourselves stuck with an out-of-control mind and off-track daily life. Pastor and New York Times bestselling author Craig Groeschel understands deeply this daily battle against self-doubt and negative thinking, and in this powerful new book he reveals the strategies he's discovered to change your mind and your life for the long-term. Drawing upon Scripture and the latest findings of brain science, Groeschel lays out practical strategies that will free you from the grip of harmful, destructive thinking and enable you to live the life of joy and peace that God intends you to live. Winning the War in Your Mind will help you: Learn how your brain works and see how to rewire it Identify the lies your enemy wants you to believe Recognize and short-circuit your mental triggers for destructive thinking See how prayer and praise will transform your mind Develop practices that allow God's thoughts to become your thoughts God has something better for your life than your old ways of thinking. It's time to change your mind so God can change your life.

Download or read book Doing Time with God Stories of Healing and Hope in Our Prisons written by MR Bill Dyer and published by . This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True crime stories provide the foundation of this prison memoir. Bill Dyer was robbed and shot at an ATM. In Doing Time with God, you go into prison with him and other victims of violence to meet with convicted felons who will be facing their worst and greatest realizations, before they are released. Nothing is predictable when victims and offenders come together and share their stories of the true crimes that have devastated their lives...and reshaped them. Victim-survivors remember their losses and feel their pain; Offenders come face-to-face with the hurt they have caused, and open wounds from their own past. Walls of defensiveness and fear are knocked down by empathy and compassion, vulnerability and tears. Raw emotions flow. The way to peace is often intense, turbulent, and heartbreaking. Even when it's not pretty, the journey is beautiful in its honesty... miraculous in the way it unfolds...divine in how it transforms lives. This Amazing Process Opens the Heart, Touches the Soul, and Renews the Mind

Download or read book Locked Up written by Don Beisswenger and published by . This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book God s Law and Order written by Aaron Griffith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive look at how evangelical Christians shaped—and were shaped by—the American criminal justice system. America incarcerates on a massive scale. Despite recent reforms, the United States locks up large numbers of people—disproportionately poor and nonwhite—for long periods and offers little opportunity for restoration. Aaron Griffith reveals a key component in the origins of American mass incarceration: evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals in the postwar era made crime concern a major religious issue and found new platforms for shaping public life through punitive politics. Religious leaders like Billy Graham and David Wilkerson mobilized fears of lawbreaking and concern for offenders to sharpen appeals for Christian conversion, setting the stage for evangelicals who began advocating tough-on-crime politics in the 1960s. Building on religious campaigns for public safety earlier in the twentieth century, some preachers and politicians pushed for “law and order,” urging support for harsh sentences and expanded policing. Other evangelicals saw crime as a missionary opportunity, launching innovative ministries that reshaped the practice of religion in prisons. From the 1980s on, evangelicals were instrumental in popularizing criminal justice reform, making it a central cause in the compassionate conservative movement. At every stage in their work, evangelicals framed their efforts as colorblind, which only masked racial inequality in incarceration and delayed real change. Today evangelicals play an ambiguous role in reform, pressing for reduced imprisonment while backing law-and-order politicians. God’s Law and Order shows that we cannot understand the criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism’s impact on its historical development.

Download or read book Future Grace Revised Edition written by John Piper and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore this stunning quality of God’s grace: It never ends! In this revision of a foundational work, John Piper reveals how grace is not only God’s undeserved gift to us in the past, but also God’s power to make good happen for us today, tomorrow, and forever. True life for the follower of Jesus really is a moment-by-moment trust that God is dependable and fulfills his promises. This is living by faith in future grace, which provides God's mercy, provision, and wisdom—everything we need—to accomplish his good plans for us. In Future Grace, chapter by chapter—one for each day of the month—Piper reveals how cherishing the promises of God helps break the power of persistent sin issues like anxiety, despondency, greed, lust, bitterness, impatience, pride, misplaced shame, and more. Ultimate joy, peace, and hope in life and death are found in a confident, continual awareness of the reality of future grace.

Download or read book Down in the Chapel written by Joshua Dubler and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and provocative interpretation of one of the most religiously vibrant places in America—a state penitentiary Baraka, Al, Teddy, and Sayyid—four black men from South Philadelphia, two Christian and two Muslim—are serving life sentences at Pennsylvania's maximum-security Graterford Prison. All of them work in Graterford's chapel, a place that is at once a sanctuary for religious contemplation and an arena for disputing the workings of God and man. Day in, day out, everything is, in its twisted way, rather ordinary. And then one of them disappears. Down in the Chapel tells the story of one week at Graterford Prison. We learn how the men at Graterford pass their time, care for themselves, and commune with their makers. We observe a variety of Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and others, at prayer and in study and song. And we listen in as an interloping scholar of religion tries to make sense of it all. When prisoners turn to God, they are often scorned as con artists who fake their piety, or pitied as wretches who cling to faith because faith is all they have left. Joshua Dubler goes beyond these stereotypes to show the religious life of a prison in all its complexity. One part prison procedural, one part philosophical investigation, Down in the Chapel explores the many uses prisoners make of their religions and weighs the circumstances that make these uses possible. Gritty and visceral, meditative and searching, it is an essential study of American religion in the age of mass incarceration.

Download or read book God of the Rodeo written by Daniel Bergner and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-02-09 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before had Daniel Bergner seen a spectacle as bizarre as the one he had come to watch that Sunday in October. Murderers, rapists, and armed robbers were competing in the annual rodeo at Angola, the grim maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana. The convicts, sentenced to life without parole, were thrown, trampled, and gored by bucking bulls and broncos before thousands of cheering spectators. But amid the brutality of this gladiatorial spectacle Bergner caught surprising glimpses of exaltation, hints of triumphant skill. The incongruity of seeing hope where one would expect only hopelessness, self-control in men who were there because they'd had none, sparked an urgent quest in him. Having gained unlimited and unmonitored access, Bergner spent an unflinching year inside the harsh world of Angola. He forged relationships with seven prisoners who left an indelible impression on him. There's Johnny Brooks, seemingly a latter-day Stepin Fetchit, who, while washing the warden's car, longs to be a cowboy and to marry a woman he meets on the rodeo grounds. Then there's Danny Fabre, locked up for viciously beating a woman to death, now struggling to bring his reading skills up to a sixth-grade level. And Terry Hawkins, haunted nightly by the ghost of his victim, a ghost he tries in vain to exorcise in a prison church that echoes with the cries of convicts talking in tongues. Looming front and center is Warden Burl Cain, the larger-than-life ruler of Angola who quotes both Jesus and Attila the Hun, declares himself a prophet, and declaims that redemption is possible for even the most depraved criminal. Cain welcomes Bergner in, and so begins a journey that takes the author deep into a forgotten world and forces him to question his most closely held beliefs. The climax of his story is as unexpected as it is wrenching. Rendered in luminous prose, God of the Rodeo is an exploration of the human spirit, yielding in the process a searing portrait of a place that will be impossible to forget and a group of men, guilty of unimaginable crimes, desperately seeking a moment of grace.

Download or read book God in Captivity written by Tanya Erzen and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of how and why evangelical Christian ministries are flourishing in prisons across the United States It is by now well known that the United States’ incarceration rate is the highest in the world. What is not broadly understood is how cash-strapped and overcrowded state and federal prisons are increasingly relying on religious organizations to provide educational and mental health services and to help maintain order. And these religious organizations are overwhelmingly run by nondenominational Protestant Christians who see prisoners as captive audiences. Some twenty thousand of these Evangelical Christian volunteers now run educational programs in over three hundred US prisons, jails, and detention centers. Prison seminary programs are flourishing in states as diverse as Texas and Tennessee, California and Illinois, and almost half of the federal prisons operate or are developing faith-based residential programs. Tanya Erzen gained inside access to many of these programs, spending time with prisoners, wardens, and members of faith-based ministries in six states, at both male and female penitentiaries, to better understand both the nature of these ministries and their effects. What she discovered raises questions about how these ministries and the people who live in prison grapple with the meaning of punishment and redemption, as well as what legal and ethical issues emerge when conservative Christians are the main and sometimes only outside forces in a prison system that no longer offers even the pretense of rehabilitation. Yet Erzen also shows how prison ministries make undeniably positive impacts on the lives of many prisoners: men and women who have no hope of ever leaving prison can achieve personal growth, a sense of community, and a degree of liberation within the confines of their cells. With both empathy and a critical eye, God in Captivity grapples with the questions of how faith-based programs serve the punitive regime of the prison, becoming a method of control behind bars even as prisoners use them as a lifeline for self-transformation and dignity.

Download or read book I Broke Out Of Prison written by Raittia Rogers and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you have a father, mother, sister, brother, grandmother, auntie or any close relative or friend incarcerated in any form of secure lockdown, one of your first thoughts is probably, "when will I get to see them again free?" Now just imagine, if your loved one physically ends up imprisoned (or have even escaped the system) but they have been locked up spiritually their entire life? In this book, I will share my powerful testimony that will demonstrate the power of God that set me free both physically and spiritually.

Download or read book Under the Banner of Heaven written by Jon Krakauer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2004-06-08 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Download or read book Free and Locked Up written by John Hoyum and published by New Reformation Publications. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme of freedom is ever-present for those who inhabit the modern western world. To be free, most people assume, means to be free over and against the state and one's neighbor. But Luther's conception of freedom is decidedly different from the usual story we tell about what it means to be a free human being. For Luther, to be free doesn't mean isolation from or opposition to one's neighbor, but freedom is the kind of liberty that empowers human beings to service of those around them. True freedom comes only from the promise of free grace in Jesus Christ delivered through the preaching of the gospel and the delivery of the sacraments. To be free in Christ involves a rediscovery of God's creation: that God has made us vessels of his goodness for those he has placed into our lives.

Download or read book Christian Beliefs written by Wayne Grudem and published by . This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Locked In and Locked Out written by Tony D. Vick and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an eye-opening look at the American prison system and how confinement affects the capability of being successful while incarcerated as well as when released. It includes popular tweets as seen on @cellsecrets, which has a large, dedicated following of people interested in reform of the current injustice system. The collection of essays and tweets will spark discussion and provide classrooms and individuals with a first-person account of confinement and its effects.

Download or read book The Man That Got Thrown Out Of Jail written by Irving Risch and published by Irving Risch. This book was released on with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This might sound like a strange title for a book, but as you will see it fits. It was back in 1979 that I had a life-changing event that took place right after I turned 41, but before I tell you what happen I just want to say this, that God gave me a gift. At the time, I didn't have any idea on how to use this gift because this was something new to me and I didn't even know that I had this gift. Are you confused yet? Maybe This will help. When the Lord ascended it is said that he gave gifts to the church. Gifts like apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. The reason he gave all these gifts was for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, His church. The Lord made sure that after he left this world he was going to equip men with all these gifts to help in the ministry of His church, (He called it his body). You see that is what the true church is, it is the hand of God reaching down to mankind here on earth. It is an extension of Christ work with the human race. Now getting back to the gift He gave me, He gave me the gift of evangelism. Maybe you are asking how do I know he gave me this gift. Well, He put it in my heart to want to reach out to those who are leading a life like I did before my conversion. I want to evangelize those who are locked up behind bars. The undesirables of the world; those that are locked up and kept apart from what we call the free society. A few years ago I started a jail ministry and everything was going great. It was as if the Lord had lit a fire under me and I was going to the jail three times a week and also doing one on one's with some of the inmates. But deep down I felt that something was wrong. The Jail administrator seemed to be real cold toward me and I heard her make comments like, "if I had it my way, these inmates wouldn't have any activities like this." While I was there she took some of the privileges away for the inmates. Things like coffee during the meeting. I know for a fact, that some of them would come out just because they could get a cup of coffee. It was a way of getting some inmates to hear what God wanted to say to them through His Word, the Bible. So when this privilege was taken away the numbers dropped. It was as if the devil was trying to prevent God's Word from being heard. She seemed to be watching me like a hawk, just waiting for me to slip up, and I did. To me, it was just a small thing but she made a big deal about it. What I did was to say something to one of the inmates about one of the jailers. I live in a very small town of 2500 people and most people knew one another. One day I was doing a one on one with one of the female inmates when I found out she was the step-daughter to one of my neighbors, and the house on the other side of my house belonged to one of the jailers. In the midst of the conversation, I made the comment that three of us were all neighbors. Apparently there was a rule that I was not to do this, and this is what she was waiting for. Because of this, I was thrown out of the jail, and that is where I came up with the title of this book. When this happen some of the inmates were asking if I could come back, I really felt excepted by them, and to be real honest, I really had a heart for those that were locked up. There was a real connection. I was there to help them, and they came to know this. Now I didn't leave them cold turkey. I had a younger man going to the jail with me to help, and when I left, he took over for me. And by the way, he is still there and doing a great job. D. L. Moody inspired me to write this book even though he is dead. I read something that gave me the idea to put these stories together. In the following pages, you will find some stories about lives that were changed by coming in contact with God through an evangelist that was sent to them by God Himself. And I truly believe that God is sending his workers out into the field for the harvest is ripe and ready. My hope is that this book will change lives by bringing some to the saving grace of God. God is in the business of saving lives saving marriages saving families; He is in the saving business. I know this because he saved me, saved my marriage, and has save many in my family.

Download or read book Jail House Religion written by Stephen Canup and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After being on top of the world with an office on Park Avenue, Stephen Canup lost it all and found himself homeless and incarcerated. Jail-House Religion is his true life story of God's redeeming love and grace. "Jail-House Religion", a term we have all heard and often made fun of, can be "the real thing" and not just "a cheap imitation". Stephen Canup knows first-hand how real and lasting a true relationship with Jesus can be. Jesus found Stephen in prison - broken, bound, battered, betrayed and busted. But Jesus saved him and changed him forever. This is his story."Jail-House Religion"-How many times have we heard that phrase? It's usually in a mocking way. Is it the "real thing" or a "cheap imitation"? Can someone really find God in a jail or prison? Is God close enough to sinners there to hear their sincere cry? Can a person really be heard by Him if they commit, or re-dedicate, their hearts to walk with Christ? Can He actually use a convict, who turns his life around, to advance the cause of His Kingdom?Having once been incarcerated for nearly three years, Stephen knows first-hand what "society" says and thinks about prisoners - they call them misfits, outcasts and career criminals. For the most part, they despise prisoners. Society thinks they are worthless, dangerous and not capable of changing their ways. But many people have been "imprisoned" in the free world by their own bad choices even though they may have never been actually "incarcerated". When someone is as low as they can go, and think that the only "light at the end of the tunnel" is a train headed their way, what do they do? When they finally wake up one day and realize they are sick and tired of being in bondage because of our own stupid actions, wrong decisions and addictions, to whom do they turn? Isn't this the best time to cry out to God?God always runs to welcome truly repentant sinners! Stephen's story is very much like "the prodigal son" in Luke 15!

Download or read book Leave A Legacy In Words written by Raymond Tapp and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book of poems was written with inspiration and from the heart. It came to pass as if God was speaking to me giving me the words to put on paper, the poems are spiritually discerned and written out of love. At times, I knew it was God speaking to me as you will find as you read these poems as well as in the books to follow. This book of poems was meant to inspire those that read them, whether they make you sad, happy, or encourage you. It was God who seen me through a five year serve out incarcerations. That is five years straight, from 1997 to the end of 2001. I have been out for 15 years and have not looked back. You have to be down and out, it is then that you will call out to God, "God help me". So, I am truly grateful that he did just that. I spent my time reading and writing a lot, also taking care of my physical body by working out and doing a lot of walking. As I walked, I had a little pocket version of the New Testament and I would read scriptures until I memorized them. One of the first scriptures I memorized was Proverbs 3:5-6. The scripture says "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths". (King James Version) May you be inspired and blessed as you read these poems. God has blessed me and he wants me to share that it was Him that changes life. May you find comfort and peace as you read these poems. God Bless Ray Tapp