Many years ago we were locked up in prison in Cuidad Victorio, Mexico. My wife and I and several friends were all thrown in among the inmates at the same time, and left to our own defenses.
But it was not for some high crime that we were in there, but to buy furniture. The prison workshop turned out intricate woodworks, and the public was invited in to see and buy. But this was not in a highly guarded prison store, but just among the general population. We walked among the cells and the prisoners, staring and shopping at our leisure. May I tell you that was a different time and a different place than today?
Aside from skin color and clothing, the prisoners and the gringos did not look any different than their counterparts. Prisoners wore street clothes and mingled among the Americans and it was much like a ‘mercado’. The only real difference was that we could leave when we got ready, and they could not.
I notice the same sort of thing in the U.S. Congress. It is hard to tell the ones doing service from those who were being served. Life in general is also much like that. There are givers among us and there are takers. That is pretty much the way it is.
Even the children of God can sometimes be confused with the children of the world;. Actions and attire are all the same, and little is transferred from one to the other. We as Christians, so it seems, enter into the prison of the world every day, but we seem to buy more than we sell. We bring more of the world out with us than we take in. Ever notice that?
We are called to be free, and different. But it’s a hard call. The only way we were able to leave the Mexican prison was to buy something, or be with someone who did. That way they knew who we were.
I will travel thru this life with the one who has set the prisoners free, and hope to leave more behind that I take out. I have been set free.
2 Cor 6:17 ESV Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,
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