We are so excited to have added cash app as a donation option. If you want to make donations to Mercy Outreach through our cash app I have changed the name of it so it not confused with my personal app. Cash app will have the picture logon of Mercy Outreach and the tag $prisonandmissions.
This has been a busy second quarter. I want to take this time to thank everyone that donated money, volunteered time, tents, and prayers to make this family day awesome. This program is all about bringing families together for restoration and healing.
Family Day is so awesome and I look forward to making it happen every year. The applause all goes out to those who show up and just jump in where they see a spot. I was so happy to have Captain American here with us. What a powerful testimony and altar call he gave. Captain America is less than a month away from doing a walk for our children. Please keep him lifted up as he does this project and all the others he is involved in.
Life is what we make it and I want to make it the best for all these men at Clayton Transitional Center. I love changing things up as well. Who knows what we will do next year to make a difference? It would be good to have some input concerning Family Day. Please contact me if you have suggestions
I look back over the years and every year some of these people have been here to help out. My family has been just awesome and I think giving credit is sometimes warranted . My granddaughter Moriah has been helping me since she was just eighteen and brought her husband Dale on board after they got married. They love the mission that Mercy Outreach has in reaching those behind the walls of prison. We were blessed to have our Superintendent Mr. Cannon and Assistant Superintendent Mr. Sampson and their staff here for the full day. Without these people, we could do nothing because we serve at their leisure, for that we are thankful for the support. We also had my daughter, Patricia Sweatman, from Central Office, with us. And, I am so blessed to have had all the help from my church, Chief Cornerstone Ministries, City Takers and Charis Gathering, who have served with us every year that we have done this project.
There are many more people and churches that come together along with many individual people who donate to help make this facility a better place. Clayton Transitional Center is the largest transitional center in the state of Georgia and we are a great example of wonderful , hardworking people and ministries coming together for a common cause. I am one grateful Chaplain serving God One Person at a time.
Inheritance!
Over the last year God has really been teaching me about who He is, who I am in Him, and what that means for me. As I submit to Him and where He is leading, I have been amazed at the truths that in my 26 years of serving him that I had glazed over, or that had not become real to me. I suppose I would say in some of these things I had a head knowledge, but not a heart knowledge.
Intellectually, as believers we know many things about God and His character, but do we know those things to be absolutely true at the core of our being? Way down deep at the very seat of who we are. We believers say God is Good, but when faced with life’s difficulties, do we still stand on that truth?
In the past year, I have had to come face to face with my intellectual beliefs and go after making them heart beliefs. Do you know and really believe that you are an heir of God?
Let me establish that with Scripture in case there are some of you who didn’t know that you are a Son or Daughter of the Most High God. I am not talking about in name or in a song, but a legitimate legal Heir of the Founder and owner of the universe and everything in it.
Galatians 3:13-14 (KJV) Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Galatians 3:29 (AMP): “And if you belong to Christ [are in Him Who is Abraham’s Seed], then you are Abraham’s offspring and [spiritual] heirs according to promise.” We become heirs to a fortune when we give our lives to Jesus. All that belongs to the Father became ours when we were born again. We became heirs of God, children of the King with the right to partake of our full inheritance. Many don’t realize they are heirs. We are ignorant of all that belongs to us in our inheritance.
I became an heir 27 years ago when I accepted Christ, but I have spent many of those years living as a red headed stepchild instead of a fully adopted accepted beloved daughter. I became a part of the richest most royal family ever known. My family owns and operates the universe. In that moment, I became an heir to a kingdom so expansive that I cannot comprehend it. We Are Heirs of God Galatians 4:6-7— “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
We Are Joint Heirs With Jesus Romans 8:15-17 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba,[e] Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Heir of All Things Hebrews 1:1-2 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”
If Jesus is heir of all things, and we are joint heirs with Him, that makes us heirs of all things as well. We have inherited everything that Jesus inherited. It is like when we accepted Jesus, He moved in with us and brought everything that he has. The inheritance is the full scope of God’s provision that encompasses everything—spirit, soul, body, financially, socially.
So, what is our problem? What holds us back from the fullness of what is available to us?
Sometimes it is just us. We believe lies taught to us by life experience because we see those experiences through glasses that are coated with pain, rejection, hurt, any number of negative emotions that keep us from seeing that in spite of our circumstance God is there, we are loved, and He is working on our behalf.
There are probably many other things that keep us from walking in our heirship, but as I read the story about Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew I couldn’t help but think how often we are willing to give away what belongs to us for a fleeting fleshly moment. Genesis 25:29 Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom. 31 But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.” 32 And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” 33 Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
We don’t consider the ultimate cost and we despise our birthright. We take a moment of weakness, hunger, anger, loneliness, brokenness, rejection or unbridled desire for things of this world we through away what Jesus lived and died for us to have.
I don’t know about you, but I am done with stew. I want all of my inheritance in Christ. John 10:10 says The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I choose abundance not stew.