Greetings,

It was week 11 of the lockdown 😞. Nothing eventful in my week as I can best recall.

A prayer of thanks and praise. I heard back from the Sheridan chaplain. It appears his reply back to me is lost in some cloud in the sky server. He sadly reported COVID-19 has returned to Sheridan. They are currently 3 staff and 3 incarcerated individuals that are active COVID-19. Sheridan overall has had a total of 8 staff and 18 incarcerated individuals. It is the second hardest-hit Illinois Department of Correction facility in the number of incarcerated individuals. Stateville the hardest hit has had 77 staff and 166 incarcerated individuals. There of course are cases pretty much throughout IDOC. I ask you to pray for all of the IDOC staff and prisoners. You can find out how each facility is faring by visiting the IDOC website.

There were only two notifications about SOCPM Alumni this past week. One was parole sadly the other notice was a death notice. Paul Boyd, who only attended one SOCPM class but this notice led me to Google ‘Paul Boyd Winnebago’ and it led eventually led me to a Sun*Times news story of his tragic death of being shot while sitting on his front porch. I share this as a reminder to me that many of my students don’t return to my relatively safe culture, but return to a culture of gangs, drugs, and violence. Please pray that God will use SOCPM students with transformed and renewed minds as Soldiers of Christ (Romans 12:1-2), fully equipped (2 Timothy 3:16-17) to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and by God’s grace see more presence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their families and communities. Experiencing SOPCM’s vision ‘To see prisoners and former prisoners with renewed hearts and minds glorifying God and sharing Christ with others.’

This week’s Wednesday Night Service message Devotional Discipline was beneficial to me personally. The section on prayer was helpful. I confess I do not journal. I will on occasion but since both my typing skills and handwriting skills are atrocious 😱. I get frustrated and don’t bother trying. However, I will give it a go once again in my journal app, DayOne. Nor do I sing, my singing skills are 'ehh' 😝. I seldom can remember even the words in part. I’ve been listening to some of the worship songs from our Sunday online service and will check out some of the musicians Joe suggested.

In addition to my sending a weekly summary of the Wednesday Night Service, I’ve been posting part of my daily devotion. Sermons by Martyn Lloyd Jones. I’m currently listening to Acts 7 sermons. I also post the daily Valley of Vision prayer (the link on the bottom left column takes you to current day’s prayer) that my wife Michelle reads before us going to bed. I on occasion will post to Facebook essays or questions on my Christian faith. I thought I posted these two a couple of weeks ago but I'm not finding now, but they matched well with this week’s Wednesday Night message. Why should we read the Bible / study the Bible and Why Pray? What is the purpose of prayer?

If you have any interesting articles or online sermons please send them my way.

Thankful for continued prayer.

To Him be the glory in ALL things and to Him alone!

Scott Kalas
Soldiers of Christ Prison Ministries

Weekly Message

Greetings guys; I think this was like week 11 of my not having the joy of being with you. I pray you have adjusted well and are reaming faithful in trusting God. To maintain that faithful trust in God it is vita; to spend time with God through devotional discipline. This week Pastor Joe Thorn gives five key things in starting of rebooting daily devotional discipline.

Wednesday Night Service May 27, 2020 - Devotional Discipline - Joe Thorn

How do we reboot our spiritual disciplines? Your personal spiritual discipline (consistencies, personal habits) will change your standing with God. If you are a believer in Jesus God’s love for you is eternal, everlasting, unshakable, nothing can separate you from the love of God. (Romans 8:38-39). However, your experience of God does change. 5 key things to think about when specifically thinking about devotional discipline.

1) Ritualize; Have consistency; Establish a particular time and place where you go to meet with the Lord. It doesn’t matter where and when. Ritualizing has to do with routine. The order and manner of how you do, what you do.

2) Read; You can’t have a robust spiritual life without engaging in the reading of God’s Word. Have a good go-to Bible (hard, app, etc.). A good translation, one that makes sense and helps you to understand God’s Word. Have a good reading plan. The key to starting up or rebooting your spiritual reading is to have a good short plan. The Bible in a year may not be a good plan. If you start missing days, you become frustrated and give up. Start with one book of the Bible. Write down observations, outlines, important doctrines, personal implications. This forces you to interact and articulate what you are observing it will help in the long run.

3) Prayer; The discipline of prayers is a vital connection to your spiritual life. Not because if you pray right you will become a better person or by finally praying right God will give you what you want. But because prayer is one of the most immediate ways in which we draw near and depend upon God. It is a means from which we receive God’s grace. Again start small, don’t worry about time, focus on the discipline itself. You are reaching out to God for help with your needs, thanksgiving, or praise. Use a model, ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). The Valley of Vision is a great tool in teaching how to pray. Another helpful habit is to pray out loud, you don’t have to pray out loud, you can pray silently. However, praying out loud is helpful because our minds tend to wander. Praying out loud helps us remain focused. Pray not just what is on your mind and heart but pray through Scripture. As you are reading God’s Word you are understanding what it says about Him, what His promises are, His warnings, what He is calling us to do and we let that guide our prayer. Praying the Bible by Don Whitney. When you pray you probably are going to have a list of things on our mind. Don’t let your mind dictate what you are going through. Get to your heart. What are your fears, excitements, longings, joys? Get to the heart of your greatest burdens and needs. God wants our hearts. Schedule prayer. Set times to pray throughout the day. Keep it simple, it doesn’t have to belong. Journal prayers, record prayers, record how God answers, not all but some. A good resoruce on prayer John Bunyan’s treatise on Prayer.

4) Sing; We are called to sing. We are given a songbook in the Psalms. Be picky, there is some bad Christian music, bad sound, lyrics. There might be some sound music but you may not vibe with it so it is okay to be picky. Find what is Biblical, theologically sound, and rich but find what helps you to ponder who God is and what He is doing. Find music that is more focused on God and less focused on you. Make time to listen to it and sing. Sing to the Lord. Some Christian music; Page CXVI, Sovereign Grace Music, The Getty’s, The Modern Post - The Water and the Blood.

5) Journal; It is not a Biblical discipline in that it is commanded but it is a way of doing many Biblical disciplines. Again start small. Once a day. Once a week, you set the rules. Use a Moleskin, Field Notes, The Lectturm1917, loose-leaf. Do it your way. There isn’t a wrong way, it can be sermon notes, Bible notes, prayers, personal exhortations. The key is to record the Holy Spirit’s work of conviction and teaching in your life. When journaling, preach to yourself, listen to yourself, and whisper to yourself. Use a writing tool you most feel comfortable with.

These things will not make God love you more, not because these things in of themselves have the power to change you but because these are ways of engaging in the means of grace. In conclusion, don’t keep score, no one else is definitely not Jesus. You miss a day that’s okay, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t do these things merely out of a sense of duty. Try to do them out a sense of personal need. Because this is how God through the means of grace will actually change you. When you do these things out of an eagerness to meet God the fire will burn longer. You may have a feeling where you have no sense of expectancy, I’m not deriving joy from it, you don’t feel you need to, in that case then let a sense of duty move you into the disciplines. In your use of the disciplines your heart changes. Pray for God to change your heart. Have fun. It should be pleasurable, if not you may be doing it too long, or going about it into a complex of way. Share what you are learning with other people, those close to you, share how God is growing you. You don’t have to walk around like John the Baptist yelling at people but it helps you articulate this to others without making you a preacher. Have an influence on others. Partner up. (end of message).

A day doesn’t go by where the Holy Spirit doesn’t bring you to mind. In my morning prayer, I often visualize my scanning the classroom and seeing your faces. As best I know there still is no date or even a potential date of when we’ll be able to return to the classroom, but in the interim let’s all be intentional in having daily devotion with our great sovereign God. Some additional Scripture; Joshua 1:8-9; Psalm 1; Acts 2:42-47; 1 Cor 16:13-16; Colossians 3:12-14; Ephesians 4:25, 5:1-7; James 1:22-27,