Bureau County Jail Ministry

12/25/2024

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:2 Are we asking the same?

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11/29/2024

Exodus 20: 5 and 6 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Epigenetics: Why Inheritance Is Weirder Than We Thought YouTube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvB0q3mg4sQ.

Epigenetics is one of God’s methods in His word under which our rebellion against Him is carried out in our lives as his creation. Every day we find that the Bible is an honest revelation of God’s desire to see us healthy and prosperous as citizens of His Kingdom through the Dominion of our Lord Jesus.

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11/27/2024

Ephesians 5: 21- 24 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The Greek Word Translated as Head is κεφαλή, Transliteration kephalē (Key)Pronunciationkef-al-ay'.
Meaning, headstone or master stone or Cornerstone.

Ephesians 5: 21- 24 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the cornerstone of the wife as Christ is the cornerstone of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The symbol of the word head implies command and control. The symbol of a cornerstone implies a foundation and a sturdy foundation. Biblical examples are:

Psalm 118:22
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Isaiah 28:16
So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.
Zechariah 10:4
From Judah will come the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler.
Matthew 21:42
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
Mark 12:10
Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
Luke 20:17
Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?
Acts 4:11
Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’
Ephesians 2:20
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
1 Peter 2:6
For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
1 Peter 2:7
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”

As men, we must seek to understand and practice the meaning of being a cornerstone to our wives and our children. Our journey of understanding begins at the feet of Christ. He is our cornerstone and the chief stone of the Kingdom.

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02/09/2024

Tucker interviews Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia. February 6th, 2024.

05/16/2023

We found out that the New Jail will finally be placed in service sometime in June. This Friday, May 19, 2023, The old jail will be closed. The inmates will be moved to the La Salle County Jail for approximately three weeks. During the three weeks, the staff will be in training to accustom themselves to the new facilities. Once the training is accomplished the inmates will then be transferred back to Bureau County. Please pray for the Correctional Officers as well as the inmates during this period of transition.

05/02/2023

Saturday, April 29, 2023, we had eight men come out to study with us Hebrews chapter 2. We considered two verses from that chapter.

9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

We looked at the sufferings of Jesus realizing that His sufferings allowed us to be sons and daughters of His Father. If we accept the new covenant in Jesus' own blood we are sons of the Living God. Sanctification ( to set it apart for God's special use and purpose) is not in our bodies, but in the body of Jesus Christ who was ripped apart for us. As Paul writes in Romans 7: 24 and 25: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

If we accept Jesus as our Covenant we are hidden within Him so that we can be used by God as his sons for greatness here and now.

04/16/2023

Saturday 15, 2023 we had seven men come to our Saturday bible study. We discussed John 20: verses 24 through 29 concerning Thomas’s open doubt concerning the resurrection of Jesus. We came to understand that the basic influences on our lives are genetics and our environment. So, when we read these verses we see that a strong influence on Thomas was that he is a twin. Didymus is the Greek word for twin (Double) as Thomas is twin in the Aramaic language. We are told nothing about his twin, we do not know if his twin was male or female all we know of Thomas is that he is a twin. Because the gospel of John highlights the name coupling Thomas with Didymus. Being a twin shaped Thomas’s relationship with Jesus. He was loyal, ready to die with Jesus, yet he questioned the resurrection. The point was made that each of the men here has genetic and environmental influences on their lives. That they need to seek Christ to understand these influences to provide understanding and action to overcome or to enhance these traits caused by their genetics and their environment. The bad traits need to be overcome with the good ones built upon.

Please pray for a man named Jeff’s daughter. She is dying of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Pray for him that he will not end up in Jail again.

04/11/2023

Last Saturday we had five men and two women come out. We provide two bible studies so that we can minister to the needs of both men and women in an appropriate manner. Please pray for Casy who wanted a bible to understand God's message from the source.

01/12/2023

Bureau County Jail Ministry Weekly Update:
Four Men came out, Christopher, Jose, Albert and Peter. Albert asked for prayer for his family who are in Chula Vista, CA. Two men did not come out, but they desired that we pray for them. I know that Trevor is asking God to help him to be a disciplined person.

We studied Psalm 29 as an allegory where David expressed his awe of the Creator. Peter always asks good questions. He was concerned about the violence associated with the storm’s ripping across Lebanon. The answer is that David was responding to the Fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. (Psalm 19: 9) There is also a prophetic element of this psalm, Tyre and Sidon were judged because of the way they treated Israel during Israel’s period of sin.

10/25/2022

Please pray for Davijion Roberson. Davijion's mother succumbed to food poising last week. Her death is a major blow to this man. If he gets the sentence offered him in a plea deal he will be in prison for decades. His mother was a touch point in his life. I trust she had come to know Jesus because of the church life she confessed to. Davijion has two sisters. Please pray for them too.

08/04/2022

I've not put up much about our ministry in the last month. We have been going in on Saturdays to meet with several men. Plus, we are disciplining a man, from our Saturday group on Wednesday. AA started last Thursday to meet with most of the men that come out on Saturday to our bible study, which is good. Please continue to pray for our ministry and AA's.

Please pray for Billy as he will be moving on in the next few weeks. Billy is growing in Jesus attempting to move his foundation from sand to the Rock, Please pray that he succeeds by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Please pray for Davion to continue his growth in the knowledge of Jesus. Davion has a long road ahead of him so he needs a good foundation. He is the man we are meeting with outside the bible study so we need the Holy Spirit's inspiration to minister to him.

Pray for Shawn, he has a very deep emotional need. He lost his family in an auto accident. He is understandably angry. He is focusing his anger on God. Pray that we can reach him because that anger is rubbing off onto the men around him.

07/15/2022

I want to share some encouragement from Jesus. I remember that we reviewed the Beatitudes when we met together. But I wanted to look at them again as a programming tool for your soul.
A note of explanation concerning the Hebrew view of we humans and the Greek view. The Old Testament is written in the Hebrew language and intellect. If you look closely at the Old Testament you will find that when talking about sin or righteousness the text used the word Heart and Soul as in Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Moses records Heart meaning our emotional body and Soul meaning our spiritual intellect. He then goes on to say use all your strength meaning devote all of your emotional body and all of your spiritual intellect to the Love of your God.
Paul used a triune view of the human as seen in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When reading Pauline writings consider that He is writing in the Greek frame of thinking and that he is writing in Greek.
I believe that this is important when we consider Jesus’ teachings. Jesus being a Hebrew thought and communicated in the Old Testament tradition. So therefore the Beatitudes are given to us in that tradition. So let’s start to consider these precious verses. Below they are copied from Matthew as translated by the NIV scholars.
He (Jesus) said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The first thing I want you to consider is that when you see the term “The Kingdom of Heaven” Immediately in your mind know that Jesus is contrasting the “The Kingdom of Heaven” to the “Kingdom of this World.”
When you consider the contrast there are two possible meanings to verse three when he speaks, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. The first is the general thought that we are poor in God’s spirit so we are seeking a revival of our spirit through Jesus.
The second view is that we have come to see that we are rich in the spirit of “The Kingdom of this World.” So when we see Jesus we want to seek his kingdom but find ourselves poor therein. Jesus bears witness to this meaning later in Matthew 6:33. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Then how do we get rid of the present and put on the new kingdom? The answer is found in the remainder of the Beatitudes.
First, we must morn because we are separated from the Kingdom of Heaven. Morning is an emotional agony created by separation. I think we all understand morning for loss and separation so I’ll move on.
Then we need to become meek. I think Jesus had the idea of how the Greek Cavalrymen used to train horses. Greek War Horses were “meeked” which meant they were trained to stay in battle rather than flee at the sound of loud canons. The Greek origin of the word meek is “praus” used to describe these strong and disciplined horses and means “strength controlled.” Jesus desired for us to be meeked under the loving hand of God. Meeked so we will not run from the attack but stay strong in Jesus to be the victor. Paul sums up what it means for a Christian to be meek in Romans 8: 31 through 39:
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
After we are settled we are able to desire real food, healthy food for our Soul. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. We no longer run about seeking treats, we have real food in Christ. 1 Peter 2:2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. We all start as babes in Christ, but as we grow we must remain hungry moving from milk to desire righteousness. The word righteous comes from a Greek word “deiknyō” meaning to give evidence or proof of a thing. Our right acts give proof of God to an unbelieving world.
When we are being filled we can then become merciful. We have received mercy so we need to give out mercy. Jesus is serious about our showing mercy. He tells a parable which is recorded in Mathew 18 that ends with Jesus stating:
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? ’In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
When we learn to forgive we gain purity of heart. Sin can be defined as anything thought or deed that separates us from God or from each other. As we rebuild relationships or learn not to destroy relationships we get closer to God and we get closer to those around us. A pure heart is a heart that restores relationships and knows how not to fracture them.
Restoration is peacemaking. Luke chapter 2 verse records the angelic throng proclaiming:
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Jesus tells us go and do the same. Be reconciled to God and seek reconciliation with your neighbor.
Of course, when this takes place the kingdom of this world will have no part of you because that kingdom stands in opposition to all you are becoming. You are leaving the kingdom of the world and entering into the kingdom of heaven.
Consider the source of your persecution, is the turbulence in your life coming from the outside, or is it internal. From experience most of our persecution is self-inflicted. We act as if we are in the kingdom of the World, so God’s Holy Spirit convicts us of separation. David believed this when he wrote:
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place. Psalm 51: 3-6

Yes, most of the persecution we get for righteous sake comes from our unrighteousness. The Good News is that we can start over again through realizing that we are Poor in God’s Spirit; that we wish to leave the kingdom of our worldly ways and seek the Kingdom of Heaven.