Prison Chapel Floor

The resurrection power of Jesus Christ is absolute. Transforming and restoring lives, healing hurt, and making all things new. This power set Michael Bowen free from the captivity, darkness, and hell of addiction, and delivered him back to God. This is Jesus Breaks the Chains. An ambassador for Christ. Hello and thank you for tuning into the podcast which is part of the Jesus Breaks the Chains series.

I'm evangelist Michael Bowen and I pray that the Lord blesses you greatly and you receive this word in love and in truth. The single greatest decision in my life was my decision to surrender my life, my body, and my will to Jesus Christ to be used by him for his purpose. To finally stop living for myself, being led by the desires of my addicted flesh, and to lay down my old life and follow him as his disciple and become his ambassador to this fallen world. 2 Corinthians 5 17-21 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the word to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I love this scripture.

This is one of the very first scriptures that I identified with when I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ in a prison. In 2013, as a hopeless drug addict, laying on that prison chapel floor, I cried out to Jesus in desperation for him to rescue me. I said, please forgive me, Lord. For all the wicked things I've done, I'm sorry. I hate myself for who I've become, and I hate this world, and I do not want it anymore. All I want is you, Lord. If I am going to leave this prison and go smoke crack cocaine again, then take my life right now.

Just kill me here. I cannot go another day being a drug addict. But if you will save me, I will serve you the rest of the days of my life. I wept and I cried, and on that floor I felt my soul crack open and my spirit being poured out onto the floor like water spilling from a broken vase. When I was finally emptied of myself and all the sadness, hurt, and pain that I was carrying, I was able to pick myself up off the floor and rise to my feet. And that is when I felt his presence. That is when I became a new creation. That is when love came and set me free. That is the moment that God began to shape and mold me into his ambassador for Christ. Oh, what a glorious day that was. I will remember that day for the rest of my life, just the day that I experienced the love of Jesus Christ for the very first time in the most profound way. It was life-changing. It was what set this drug addict for 25 years free. Hallelujah.

That was eight years ago. I want to share this scripture with you. This is a very important scripture because this is what the process I went through. This scripture details the process that I went through. Second Corinthians 7 10. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner, what diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication in all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Brothers and sisters, friends of mine that are listening to this podcast, it all begins with godly sorrow. When you are truly sorrowed for rejecting God and his purpose for your life, like I had done for so many years when I chose the world over him and I chose the way of the world and the trappings of the world and the desires of my flesh over the things of God. When you finally realize your best efforts at managing your own life result in being a drug addict, criminal, alone in prison, that is when you come to the end of yourself in godly sorrow.

That's what happened to me. That moment on that prison floor, I allowed the old man and me die. The man I used to be was destroyed that day on that prison chapel floor. I'd finally come to the end of myself and had nowhere else to turn but to the only one who was left that would listen.

I'd already pushed everyone else away with my lying, cheating, stealing and broken promises. I had tragically burned every bridge in my life and that is when Jesus heard my cry and he inclined his ear to me and he rescued me and he made me his own. I like to think of this scripture. Luke 9 23 through 25 says, then he said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? In that moment, I had to choose to lose my old life for Jesus' sake in order to be saved. I had to deny my old addicted self and all its desires and give myself to Jesus for his purpose to be used by him and follow his will instead of my own. 2 Timothy 2 20 through 26. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the ladder, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work. Flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. That day on that prison floor, I became his vessel. I was cleansed from my old life and made new. I chose Jesus over myself in this world, and he poured his light, which is his love into me.

And I was changed. I was made clean. Later, he filled this new vessel with the Holy Spirit and his power to be able to be used by him as his witness to do the good works that he had prepared for me before he laid the foundations of the earth. God knitted me together in my mother's womb for this purpose, to serve him the rest of the days of my life, to be his witness and tell people the good news of his gospel and how they too can be saved and delivered from addiction, hurt, anger and all the things that this world will break you down and bring you into Hallelujah.

First John 1 says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. And I needed to be cleansed. I felt dirty. I felt alone. I felt abandoned. I had done so many things to the people that I care about in love. And I had lied and cheated and stolen from people. And I just felt dirty and miserable.

And I just felt like there was no hope. But in that moment when God's presence came over me and he poured his love out on me and I felt his presence for the first time in the most profound way, I was cleansed. Hallelujah. And I just I hold on to that moment.

It was the greatest moment of my life. And I like to share that with people, that moment when I surrender, because we all have a moment in our lives where we need to go to our knees and have that godly sorrow and ask God to forgive us and repent. Hallelujah. Of that old way of life and repent of those sinful ways, the ways of the world and the ways of the flesh. Hallelujah. Ephesians 1 through 6 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted in the beloved. Made by Jesus Christ. I was accepted in that moment, brought into the family of God.

It was just life changing. And it was the day the foundation was set for me to begin a new life, to be a new creation, to have a renewed mind and to be able to focus now on what the Lord had created me to do. My purpose for him creating me and receiving the power and the love and the hope to be an ambassador for Christ. Moving forward, Acts one, four through eight says, And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me for John truly baptized with water. But you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel to Israel?

And he said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. For me, Michael Bowen, to be a disciple and an ambassador for Christ is to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as myself and to be conformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ and show this image as a witness to the world in power and in deed. Romans 8 28 through 30 says, And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestined these he also called whom he called these he also justified and whom he justified these he also glorified. This is what I'm called to do every day in my life. This is the deal that I made with Jesus when I laid on the prison chapel floor and asked him to save me.

I traded my old, addicted, selfish life of sadness, loneliness, hurt and devastation and for a new life as his servant, as his disciple, as his ambassador, showing the world who Jesus is through me. The word ambassador originates from the Latin word ambactus, which means servant. So when I told Jesus that if he saved me, I would serve him the rest of the days of my life, I was really telling him that I would be his ambassador from that day forward.

And that is what I am. What is an ambassador? An ambassador is one who is sent to represent one country or government to another. While in the other country, the ambassador presents and demonstrates all the best that their home country or government has to offer. They are a representation to the country they are visiting of what people from their country are like. Let's just say I was a United States ambassador to Spain. Then I would go to Spain and represent the United States to show Spaniards what Americans are like, how we act, how we speak.

I would show them the good character traits, morals and values that make Americans who we are. In this same way as an ambassador for Christ, I represent Jesus and his kingdom and I show the world how he is by how I interact with people and share the love of Christ with them. Brothers and sisters, friends of mine, when you give your life to Jesus like I did on that prison chapel floor, you become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. The Bible says that we are at that moment translated into the kingdom of God's son. How wonderful is this?

How glorious is this? Colossals 113-14 says, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. I was delivered from the captivity darkness and hell of addiction into the kingdom of Jesus and his love. It was his love that drew me in. It was his love that caused my godly sorrow and it was his love that brought me to my knees that day. It was his love that set me free and it's his love now that I walk in every day and I share with the people that I come into contact with. I was set free that day, free from sin, free from the desires of my flesh, free from the boundaries and the confines of this world, and free from my own self and my own horrible decisions that I had made trying to manage my life. John 8.36 says, Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

I, Michael Bowen, am a citizen of heaven and I am free. Philippians 3.20 says, But we are citizens of heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. Ephesians 2.19-22 says, Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 1.13, In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. As a citizen of heaven, my heavenly passport has been officially sealed and stamped by Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, certifying where my true identity and citizenship lies in Jesus Christ, in the kingdom of heaven, in the household of God where I belong. It's where I've always belonged. On that prison chapel floor, when I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, my citizenship was moved and my identity was changed. I'm no longer a citizen of this world. I'm a citizen of heaven. I'm no longer a drug addicted criminal.

I'm an ambassador for Jesus Christ to this world. Oh, that makes me so happy to say, you don't know how many years I lived under that identity as a hopeless drug addict, criminal, convict. And I carried it with me and I carried all the shame that comes with that. When people looked at me, I just felt so dirty and unloved and just felt like a horrible person. And I felt like as they were looking at me, they could see that in me, even if it was the first time I met them. I just felt that they could somehow see that, that in me, that I was this drug addict, that I was this loser, and I carried it with me.

It was horrible. And I've shed that. I have a new identity in Jesus Christ now.

And I want to just encourage anybody out there who's listening. If you don't feel good about yourself, and if you have an identity that you feel worthless, give your life to Jesus Christ and let him change who you are. You will be a new creation. Old things passed away.

All things have become new. Hallelujah. Now for the rest of my life here on earth, I am not just here for my own plans and interests. I'm now representing heaven, doing the will of God and sharing Jesus Christ with those around me. Like I'm doing right now, sharing Jesus Christ with you through this podcast. This is serious business being an ambassador for Christ. As an ambassador, I may be the only real sample of heaven some people ever see. My story and my testimony may be the only thing that they ever know about how Jesus can work in someone's life by seeing how he has worked in mine. The mission of my life has now become this to give people a sample of what it is like to have Jesus working in a person's life, to show them the Jesus who now lives in me. As an ambassador for Christ, to show them what Jesus is like.

Ambassadors come from a wide variety of backgrounds with different personalities and upbringings, different experiences and difficulties. We all have very unique God-given gifts and talents that Jesus can use to draw others to him. We all have a testimony of how Jesus changed our lives and we need to share that testimony with everyone we meet.

If you have not given your life to Jesus Christ yet, when you give your life to Jesus Christ, he will take your past and he will allow you to use that, to share it with others, to help them. The same things that you struggle with, they can see that in their own life and know that if he changed you, then he can change them. If he helps you through your struggles, then he will help them through their own struggles that are like yours. Very, very important your testimony is.

No matter what your story is, it is important and needs to be shared. There are people out there that need to hear about how Jesus has changed your life. Not everyone is going to respond to my testimony, but they may respond to yours.

Matter of fact, your story may be the only thing they may ever respond to. That is how important you are in the kingdom. That is how important you are to Jesus and his work in the salvation of souls.

The destination of someone's soul may be counting on your ambassadorship, brothers and sisters, and friends of mine. Hallelujah. This is why you must always present yourself as a living sacrifice to be used by God for his purpose. You must repent and surrender to God. In this, God will take what the enemy and this world meant for evil and use it for good for his glory, your redemption, and the other's salvation.

Hallelujah. Romans 12, one through two. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The good and acceptable and perfect will of God is for all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth that Jesus died for our sins so that we can be saved and become citizens of heaven and have eternal life with him in his kingdom. Romans 8, 28.

I'll repeat this. It's one of my favorite scriptures. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

I'm one of those. I love God and I am called according to his purpose. So I know that God is working out all things in my life for good.

Even now in my day to day life, when bad things happen to me or things don't go my way, I don't stress about it because I know and I hold on to this scripture. This is the word of truth. And I've seen the Lord do this in my life time and time and time again. And so I know he's going to take that with the enemy meant for evil and what people meant for hurt and harm. He's going to take that and work it together for the good. Hallelujah. And it's all for his glory. Hallelujah.

And I just want you to stand on that right now. Give your life to Jesus Christ. If you're straight away and maybe you find yourself walking more into this world, come back to Jesus. Repent. You know, we can we repent all the time, all day long if we need to. And any time that we may feel the conviction that maybe we've we've sinned or we've we've done something that might have hurt somebody or that wasn't right, then we can just repent and ask forgive us in his quick to forgive and move us through and make that a teaching moment.

Hallelujah. When Jesus brings you out of this world in death, he takes you and makes you his own. Matter of fact, you have always belonged to Jesus and you have always had a purpose. Just like me, when I was out there committing crimes and using drugs, Jesus had his hand on me because I belong to him.

And so do you. Even when I was a drug addict, stealing from people and getting high on drugs, Jesus knew I was his disciple, his evangelist, his ambassador. That prison was not the end of my story.

The place you're at right now. And if you're in a low place in your life right now, if you're in one of those dark valleys, if you are sick, if things haven't gone your way, if you're incarcerated, if you have an addiction to anything and you're struggling, if you're having relationship problems with your loved ones, that is not the end of your story. Hallelujah. Jesus is writing that story and you will have a good ending.

Your story will be used for good. Hallelujah. God's will for me and my true destiny in Jesus Christ was for me to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth of who he is and who I am in him. That day on that prison floor when I surrendered my life to Jesus, that's when I finally uncovered the truth and the truth set me free. Truth is not a quality or state of being. Truth is a person and that person's name is Jesus.

Hallelujah. First Timothy three through six says, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But there is one God and one mediator between God and men, that man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

I will leave you with this. Serving God as a citizen of heaven is our duty and reasonable service by becoming and being a living sacrifice and ambassador for Christ. Our calling is to point people to Jesus and show people his love by walking as he walked when he was here on earth in the flesh so that they can be drawn to him and come to the knowledge of truth themselves and be saved. Jesus has commissioned us as believers as his ambassadors to represent him here on earth. And he has given us through the indwelling of his Holy Spirit, the right, the ability and the power to fully execute this mission.

And now we must all do it boldly. We must love God, love people and share Jesus with them as ambassadors for Christ. I just want to thank you so much for listening to this podcast and just tell you that my identity and Jesus Christ is that I am the ambassador for him. And it is one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life when I can share him with others and see them respond in a way that sets them free. And I just encourage you just to go in prayer. And if there's anything in your life right now that you're struggling with, give it to the Lord.

Let him move you through it and set you free. And then he will lay out in front of you his purpose for you as his ambassador moving forward. I just want to thank you so much in Jesus name. I pray for everyone listening to this podcast to be blessed and to come to the knowledge of truth of who Jesus is as your savior. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.