The Enemy Is Us

The hardest lesson for me to learn in ministry was what the enemy looked like. Theologically speaking I understood Satan was real and he was the god of this world. I knew that we did not wrestle against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces. I knew that the early church, and the universal church around the world struggled against an enemy that was vitriol and out for the blood of anyone who would profess a commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God and only savior. I understood all of this and I was ready to take on the enemy. If it meant I was to be burned at the stake for the name of Jesus, so be it. I could take pain, I wasn’t going to back down, and I was ready to rumble, fully armed and ready for war.

When I jumped into ministry, I was fired up about spreading the message of the Gospel. I also knew I had to call people to join me in this battle. That’s what planting a church is about. It’s calling the people of God to do the work of God, overcoming the enemy of God. In fact it was in the midst of my first church plant that I found myself in the fiercest battle…but the enemy I was fighting with wasn’t Satan, and it wasn’t godless pagans who hated the Gospel. I was fighting with people who professed a saving faith in Jesus Christ and as far as I could tell had a deep devotion to Him.

I could spend a lot of time trying to explain individual experiences I have had in order to give a fully developed picture. The problem was that each battle I faced was connected to the make up of the individual I was dealing with. The problems I found myself in were as complex and numerous as the personalities of the people in God’s church. There is enough content in the details to write 50 books and probably warrant an honorary doctorate in psychology from a prestigious university. I’m big on cliff notes, and I find that “principles” are the cliff notes of life’s experience. So, here’s a few Cliff Notes on years of experience I have gained in ministry.

First, Well intentioned and seemingly spiritual people sometimes hurt the church. It took me a long time to understand this principle, but I think I have figured it out. Somewhere during the life experience of certain believers, they grabbed onto a truth and elevated it above every other truth in scripture. In some cases the experience was bad and they found a truth in scripture that highlighted the problem so they grabbed a hold of it and elevated it. In other cases the experience was good and they felt they had the whole picture and didn’t need to develop a fully orbed theology.

As an innocuous example; The person who grew up in a fundamentalist background had an awesome grace experience but they can’t embrace a theology of church discipline. Another example would be a person who was blessed to see a supernatural move of God working on behalf of His people, but they don’t ever develop a realistic sense of how much human effort went into the work before God moved in a uniquely supernatural way. So they believe that everything God does is without human effort or responsibility. These experiences, by themselves, produce unbalanced and ultimately unhealthy believers.

Teaching someone to trust the Word of God more than their limited experience is extremely difficult. It’s not that their experience was wrong or unbiblical, it’s just that it was limited, and God has more to teach all of us. It takes cooperation to continue to grow in Christ, and when we refuse to allow God to develop us we get stuck, and when we get stuck we become ineffective, even a hinderance to the work God is willing to do.

Second, it’s extremely difficult to find people willing to examine themselves in order to grow further. It’s painful to grow. It requires that we acknowledge we have not arrived. It requires that we listen to what other believers around us are saying to us. It requires that we humble ourselves and admit we are wrong at times.

Jesus called us to make disciples. When the people of Christ refuse to engage in the process of Christ, they become incapable of producing disciples of Christ. The mark of truly healthy churches is the genuine commitment to discipleship at all levels. When you remove the willingness to allow the Word, Spirit and people of God to speak into your life you stop growing. When you stop growing you hit the ceiling of what God can do with you.

Thirdly, people act in a way that unsettles the faith of others while believing they are doing the work of God. This single principle is probably the most damaging because it’s the active destruction that nobody can see. When a person has an unhealthy balance in their theological thinking, they begin pushing their view. More often than not the tone is critical. Criticism fuels gossip, and gossip sows dischord.

Paul warned Timothy that quarreling and irreverent babel unsettles and even destroys people’s faith. How often do well intentioned believers who don’t examine themselves champion their unbalanced views. They make their hang ups the primary issue, and with a very critical approach pass judgement on everyone who won’t jump on their broken bandwagon. Some do it with passion, some do it with passivity, but they almost always communicate a form of judgement on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

They believe their passion is spiritual and honoring to Christ but what they can’t see is that they are actually destroying the faith of some. The tone is often void of love or encouragement and often times they subtly promote themselves as more spiritual than anyone else. The truth is, God is honored when people are encouraged to press into Christ. Scripture is clear in it’s expectation that believers never lose sight of Jesus.

So what needs to happen? If we all examine ourselves in light of the cross…we realize that we have no capacity or place to judge anyone in the family of God. It’s in the midst of our failures and shortcomings that we submit to Christ, trusting His grace and strengthening one another. The one who judges, has not understood God’s grace, more specifically, they don’t understand how desperately they have needed God’s grace. When we realize that we are a mess, and we continue to be a mess, it causes us to proclaim Jesus Christ to our bothers and sisters and encourage them to press into grace. We walk together in the midst of our incomplete theology trusting God to shape us by His Word, with His Spirit, and through other imperfect believers.

When this happens we stop being our own worst enemy. When we stop being our own worst enemy God begins to move, and the battle we fight will be with the real enemy. When that happens victory is certain.

 

 

Epic Evangelism Failure

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.  -  Matthew 23:15

A thankful life is a life on a mission.  Somewhere along the line we have lost sight of the “mission” we are called to be on. ” Go therefore and make disciples…”  this is the work.  It’s the defining mark of someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ.  As we get ready to close out 2012, and we consider what we want to shore up in our lives, let’s talk about the epic evangelism failure of the church.

I’m going to bypass all the criticisms of various models and get right down to brass tacks.  It’s always easy to give critical generalizations about what should be happening.  I find when I do that, it produces generally critical people with no idea of how to change anything.  Critics are a dime a dozen and the church is a wholesale supplier.  So, instead of filling heads with criticism i’m going to go for conviction that brings about a change of heart and leads to impact.  Ready, here goes.

We have failed at evangelism because we are not living the lives Christ called us to live.  Jesus makes devoted followers.  He creates people who know Him intimately, walk with Him daily, follow Him sacrificially.  In other words, followers of Christ give Jesus whatever He asks because they understand what they have been given by Him.  Christ gave his life for us and out of gratitude we return the favor.

As it stands, for many of us, being a disciple of Christ  means serving God when it benefits us.  It means being devoted as long as it’s convenient.  It means gathering with the elect when we don’t have something better going on like or shopping or catching up on our sleep.  It means loving when I’m treated the way I think I should be treated.  It means praying when I need God to do something for me.  It means filtering God’s love for me through financial, relational, and emotional stability.  It means ignoring the truth in the word of God and developing a theology based off of how I feel about things.

You can’t be effective at making disciples when you redefine it to a thing of convenience.  People are lost but they’re not stupid.  It’s not hard for them to see the gap between what we say we are committed to and what we are actually committed to.

Effective evangelism starts with a passionate commitment to follow Christ.  Give up everything.  Count all things loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus.  Devote everything to Him, and then you will be effective at calling people to a life they see you living.

Visible Passion for Jesus

“for even sinners love those who love them.”  - Luke 6:32

It takes passion to be different.  Nobody get’s fired up about accomplishing the everyday, ordinary things.  There is nothing inspiring, nothing energizing, and nothing fascinating about doing something anybody can do.  This is why Jesus placed the bar so high.  He expects anyone who claims to be a Christ follower to be extraordinary.

To be lights in a dark world means to be committed to the mission.  Jesus called you to be dedicated to His kingdom.  He has never been interested in gathering a group of people who could accomplish something ordinary.  He wasn’t looking for people who would only do what sinners were capable of doing.  He is looking for people who are looking to do what can only be done when they are empowered by the life of  Christ in them.

“If the Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in you.”  - Romans 8:11

It’s the opportunity for you to experience the power of God that keeps you from becoming apathetic.  God offers this, but never apart from your engagement in His call to the mission.

It starts with your relationship to the divine.  His life in you is fueled by your engagement with him.  Your time spent in the Word of God, your commitment to prayer, your ongoing communion with the living God.  The experience of fellowship with the living God was made available to us by Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.  Scripture teaches us that we can approach God with boldness and confidence because Christ has secured a righteous standing with God.  As awesome as this is, you have to go beyond this.

The life of Christ in you must produce the love of Christ through you.  His spirit giving life to your mortal body means he’s producing something extraordinary in your life.  He’s producing something in you that could not be produced apart from him.  If the outward expression of the life of Christ in you is something that anybody could produce, it’s a problem.  It’s a huge problem.  The world loves those that love them.  God expects you to genuinely love your enemies.  The world lends out in order to get a return on their investment.  God expects you to give never expecting to get anything in return.  The world believes a fight is warranted when someone strikes them.  God expects you to offer them the other cheek.  None of these things are done without the life of Christ in us.  It’s the pursuit of this standard that keeps us from becoming apathetic.

Tragically, we have looked for average morality as the mark of the Christian life.  That’s not the expectation Jesus put forth.  He is looking for the extraordinary life of God.

“You will recognize them by their fruits.  Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?”  -Matthew 7:16

The call to live a life that is beyond your capacity will be a challenge at first.  However, when you commit to meeting the challenge, and you experience the power of God through you, a fire will be stoked in your heart and the power of God through you will not be contained.

The Offensiveness of Jesus

“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”  (Luke 7:22&23)

Jesus is awesome and offensive all at the same time.  He holds, in his possession; healing, power, restoration and salvation.  Not only does he have these in his possession, he is offering them to you if you are willing to follow him.  He is sufficient for everything.  He offers abundant life.  It’s all there for the taking, but you have to get past his offensiveness.

Many people are told that when you come to Jesus, he accepts you without conditions.  This simply isn’t true.  Where there are no “conditions” there is no risk of being “offended”.  Jesus is boldly declaring what he has done and what he continues to do in peoples lives.  He is saying, “there is no need I can’t meet, no disease I can’t heal, no relationship I can’t restore, no miserable destitute life I can’t redeem and use.  But…”

There will be a moment…no there will be many moments in your life that Jesus will offer you something amazing.  The challenge?  More often than not, standing between what Jesus offers and you, is something about him that is personally offensive.  It’s this offensive aspect of who Jesus is or what he demands that you have to overcome in order to receive what he wants to do in your life.

He offers healing but demands confession.  He offers abundance but expects sacrifice.  He offers salvation but requires faith and repentance.  He offers honor but looks for humility.  He offers restoration but mandates forgiveness.

What does Jesus offer that you don’t have yet?  Do you need to be saved?  Do you need to be healed?  Do you need to have a broken relationship restored?  Do you need to experience his favor in your life?  Do you need the strength to change?  Any of these things are available to you once you have met his conditions.  Repent, be humble, forgive, confess, and surrender to him.  Then you will experience the abundance he offers.

Fist Bumping Surgeons, TMI From A Woman Who Had Her Tubes Tied, And Other Stories From St. Louis

Well we are in the moment…I just said good-bye to Jo as they wheeled her off to the surgery room…she had all the bells and whistles attached to her body.  I realize I had a harder time holding it together on Sunday.  Talking about the whole “story” is different than living in the moment.  In all honesty Jo and I are not very stressed…6 years of dealing with cancer and you learn that if you don’t learn to relax you’ll probably die of a heart attack and have a nervous breakdown.  So we’ve learned more about God’s goodness to us than we have about anything else.  The truth is everyone dies, and when we do we will give an of our life to God.  So far, I feel as if we have run our race and kept the faith (not a perfect race but we are still moving toward the finish line).  So, the rest is just scenery.

The trip has been great.  I have to be honest, we were both nervous after the first meeting with the surgeon. The back story is that he had been out of the country when we talked to his assistant.  When he got back, she had been gone for a week at a wedding.  The truth is;  the Monday we met with him was his assistant’s first day back in the office.  He had not had a chance to connect with her.

He came in the room and seemed a little out of sorts. He asked us funny questions like, “So, you have MTC?”  Then said, “Hey you’re from Florida, that’s a long way to travel.”  He looked at her neck, and then said, “I would recommend you do a second surgery to get those out.”  Jo looked at him and said, “You do know we have surgery scheduled for tomorrow.”  He kind of cocked his head, looked in her file, and sort of stumbled through some other questions.  Then he said, “I’ll be right back.”

Jo and I kind of sat there puzzled.  I said, “He doesn’t seem like he really knows what’s going on.  Is it just me?”  She felt the same way.  Earlier, when we arrived, he asked if we had the scans.  We explained we sent them weeks ago.  Jo told him the whole story about how they were overnighted to the mail room and how his secretary found them.  While he was out collecting himself, I said, “You need to get emails out so you can show him we sent the scans.”

I don’t know how to describe the initial meeting but it was sort of like traveling  to see the Wizard of Oz and being greeted by the man behind the curtain.

When the Dr. came back in he apologized, and explained the situation with his admin.  That’s when I said, “I know what you mean, I have an admin too.”  I wanted to offer up a fist bump.  Who knew being a pastor was so much like being a world class surgeon?  Having said that, that’s where our connection stopped.  As the meeting went on the Dr. recovered well. He read her medical records and explained what he was going to do.

I asked him what he thought about the outcome.  He said, “Given her age, numbers, and where the cancer is I would be very optimistic. But…but you never know with this cancer because it is so small.”  He went over the numbers we had already heard.  33% of patients that have a second neck dissection have their numbers go to normal.  The majority of those never see the numbers go up again.  So, we are encouraged by that, and trusting that God is working through so many who are praying on our behalf.

After the doctor we went on a date and then drove to the Sust home.  Michael Sust is the pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel St. Louis.  We talked for a long time, prayed together and then got a good night sleep.  We are looking forward to visiting them at Harvest on Sunday.

This morning, they checked her in and took her for an ultra sound.  While in the waiting room I could feel this large African American woman staring at me.  I didn’t think too much of it.  I figured if I focused on my episode of “Duck Dynasty” she would move on to better things.  Not so much.  In a loud voice, loud enough for me to hear over my headphones she said  (This requires it’s own paragraph)

“THEY ARE SO SLOW HERE.  I JUST HAD MY TUBES TIED.”

I looked up, and didn’t know what to say.  So I just opened my mouth halfway, cocked my head to the side and said, “huh.”  At that moment, I was delivered from the worlds most difficult transition into the Gospel. The front desk called her name and she was on her way.

When Jo came out of the sonogram room she had two black marker spots on her neck.  One on her right side just above the clavicle.  The other on her left side just below her jaw.  Mayo Clinic had not seen the ones on her left side so this is a huge find.  Obviously, they need to get all the cancer out and finding the nodes in the upper right was a big deal.  This is a credit to the doctor who came in and felt around her neck and worked with the lab tech.

The surgeon also told Jo she should write a blog about how to organize your medical records.  He said her binder was so well kept that he was able to get incredible clarity on where we’ve been and what to do moving forward.  Every once in a while I am reminded of the value of organizational skills.  This was one of those times.  I am now also convinced if I ever get cancer they will probably remove my left heel due to the confusion created by my lack of organizational skills.

About 30 minutes ago, I was with Jo in the prep room.  As I said, she had all the bells and whistles.  I asked if she was nervous.  She said, “no”  I asked if it bothered her that she was void of emotions.  She said, “no.”  With that we both smiled, I gave her a kiss and they wheeled her off.

In a couple of hours she will be done.  Then, there won’t be much to do except recover.  In a few weeks, she will have blood work done at the Mayo Clinic.  This is when we will know how successful the surgery was.

Until then, special thanks to everyone who has been praying, texting, calling and face booking.  I don’t even mind that most of you didn’t realize there is a one hour time difference.  Actually, I was up before my first text at 6:19am.  Since I wasn’t woken up, this is a good spot to say Jerry Bell won the morning encouragement race!

Well, I’m now going to leave Starbucks and head back to the waiting room.  There are way more funny stories to be experienced over there than here.

In Christ,
Jeremy

PS  My wife said no pictures of her coming out of surgery, I agreed but there was nothing stated about videos!  :)

The Constant Threat of Truth

And the chief priests and scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.  - Mark 11:18

There is nothing more threatening than the truth.  I know what your thinking… “but the truth will set you free!”  To which I say, “Yes it will…but not until you come to terms with the reality that the truth is a constant threat to your comfort, your feelings, your opinions, and in many respects your way of life.”  We like the “idea” of truth, when we can hold it with an outstretched hand, never close enough to feel it pressure us for change.

Jesus was radical!  He was a lightning rod in a world that had grown comfortable with religious tradition, power structures, and societal norms that were embraced.  He came into this world, and he shined truth into it, and the world hated it!  It was a threat to their lives, their assumptions, their feelings about who God was and what God wanted for them.  He loved the world, and because he loved the world, he fought with them, constantly threatening their darkened minds with truth.

Please make a note.   Jesus didn’t fight because he enjoyed fighting.  He didn’t threaten because he was on a power trip.  He fought because the truth was worth fighting for.  A world that was on it’s way to hell, needed to hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  When Jesus saw the need for the truth, he taught it, he preached it, and he lived it.  His commitment to truth caused deep feelings to well up in people who heard it.  The truth still has the same impact in us.

First, truth can invoke a desire to destroy the one who is telling it.  The Pharisees knew that what Jesus was teaching would cause them to lose their ability to control their world.  It was getting in the way of  a comfortable system they had set in place.  They were supposed to be teachers of the law, defenders of the truth, and guardians of the rules, but when truth threatened their control their wicked desire was “to destroy him.”

Second, truth causes people to be astonished.  God’s truth tends to fly in the face of worldly wisdom.  Ideas like “greatness comes by serving”  ”Abundant life is found in giving your life up” and “Spiritual Growth comes by hardship” are all counter intuitive.  Any time the truth confronts what is culturally embraced, and stands in direct opposition to it, we feel threatened.  We forget that truth is not defined by what is popular, it’s defined by God.  When conventional wisdom in confronted by the truth, we tend to be astonished.

Third, it forces a choice.  When God reveals truth to us, he’s not trying to fill our head with information, He’s instructing us on how to live our lives.  This is the nature of truth’s threat.  It comes with a choice.  The choice is a commitment to change.

The difference between the enemies of God and the friends of God, is submission to the truth.

It starts at the moment of salvation.

When a sinner realizes she is separated from God, and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the only source of reconciliation,  the truth of her sin and God’s remedy demands repentance.  Repentance requires a willingness to change direction.  She must, by faith, move away from her sinfulness and selfishness, and towards a life of sacrifice for the glory of God.

When a follower of Christ is confronted by the Word of God, he is expected to surrender the things that are hindering his spiritual growth.  In the process, his opinions and way of life have to be on the table.  Discipleship requires obedience.  Since sin by definition means we have failed at obedience, spiritual growth means we are allowing God to undo sinful thinking, sinful living, and that means we are willing to change.

The truth is a constant threat.  The moment truth seems threatening is the moment you are standing at the door of a radical transformation.  When you feel threatened, and the issue is truth, walk through that door, and then “the truth will set you free.”

The Church of Prison Guards

I have an uncle who is a prison guard.  What a job.  He spends his day making sure people are paying for their crimes. To be honest I don’t know a lot about what he does on a daily basis but I know what he has never done.  I’m certain he has never called a prisoner over, opened the cell gate, and said, “hey, you wanna leave?” His job is to make sure the people who are in prison stay in prison.  His job is to oversee the lives of people who have nothing to do other than pay for their crimes.

Jesus told a parable that was intended to illustrate what our life should look like as people who have been forgiven by His sacrifice.  The story is found in Matthew 18:21-35.  To put the story in context, Jesus had just finished addressing how to handle a situation where a brother sins against you.  To state it simply, our goal, following someone sinning against us, should be restoration.

If he listens to you you have gained your brother.  -Matthew 18:15

After Peter hears this astounding instruction about forgiveness…Peter, quite possibly in an attempt to look good to Jesus, asks, “how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?”  Then He throws out this mind blowing number.  ”seven times?”

Now stop and think about this for a minute.  When was the last time you truly forgave someone for doing something against you seven times?  Have you ever been cheated on seven times?  Have you ever been lied to seven times?  Have you ever had someone gossip about you seven times?  Now, have you ever had someone do any of those things seven times and still you and that person are on good terms?  Remember the goal Jesus laid out for us to obtain?

…you have won your brother.

If I had someone in my life that sinned against me seven times and I forgave them seven times, and we were still brothers…I would feel like a spiritual giant.  This is probably what Peter was getting at…”Lord, I have a number, that I believe is a standard, and when obtained makes me an exceptional follower of you.”

Have you ever had one of those moments where you were feeling pretty good about your spiritual status and then God showed you something that completely obliterated any sense of Christian exceptionalism?  Well buckle up.

Jesus recognizing Peter’s failure to see how God’s grace should influence our forgiveness says,

“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

That’s not 77 that’s 70 x 7.  I was feeling good about the potential to forgive seven times.  Had Jesus stopped there, I would have been challenged.  On this particular issue Jesus doesn’t want us challenged, He wants us to feel crushed under the weight of God’s expectation.  Jesus tells a story.

Here’s the short version.

A servant owes a King some money.  So you understand the debt, it’s amount was 10,000 talents.  (One talent was worth twenty years labor for a servant.)  The King threatens to put the servant in prison.  The servant begs and pleads with the King for forgiveness and the King forgave the servant the entire debt.

The servant, upon receiving this incredible act of forgiveness goes and finds a guy who owes him money.  So you understand the debt, it’s amount was 100 denaraii. (One denaraii was a days wage.)

There are a few important details to track.

First, when he found the man who owed him money, he started off by seizing him and choking him and demanding the debt be paid.

Second,when fellow servant begged for patience and promised to pay him, the servant who had been forgiven refused to do the same to his fellow servant and put him in prison till his debt was paid.

Okay quick recap.

1. Servant has a debt that is impossible for Him to pay.
2. Servant deserves prison but begs for forgiveness.
3. Servant is forgiven of something he had no chance of paying.
4. Servant goes to fellow servant who owes him a debt that he was capable of paying.
5. Servant chokes fellow servant and demands the money.
6. Servant refuses to forgive and has the man thrown in prison.

Okay, so if you were feeling good about your potential to forgive someone seven times, Jesus not only upped the ante to 490 times, but he then concludes his story with this little word of encouragement.

“Then his master summoned him and said to him ‘you wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.  And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?  And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.  So also my heavenly Father will do to everyone of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

I’ve been in full time ministry for 15 years now.  It’s staggering how many people who claim to follow Christ act as if it’s their duty to be a prison guard.  We live as if we some how have a right to make sure that people pay their debts, which are always less in comparison to the debt we could not pay God.  Allow me to make a quick list, off the top of my head.

1. People leave churches because they have an issue with leadership and are unwilling to resolve it.  (This is their way of making leadership pay their debt.)
2. People change how they relate to those who were once friends because they can’t work through an issue.  (This is their way of making people pay their debt.)
3. People build alliances around a common enemy, leaving a person out of the new found circle of friends.  (This is how they make people pay their debt.)
4. People subtly or blatantly demand “proof” that there is a change before they restore relationship.  (This is a way to make someone pay their debt.)
5. People refuse to acknowledge that they probably need to own up to their portion of the problem, but instead act as if they are guiltless.  (and they make them pay their debt.)

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you need to understand you have absolutely no right at all whatsoever to make someone pay a debt because they have wronged you.  (I’ve highlighted this, and quoted it, and put it in bold letters so you don’t miss it.)

I’ve been hurt by a lot of people, so I understand that this is a hard saying to live with.  Nevertheless, it’s time for us to get slapped in the face with the reality of how much we have been forgiven.  Do you seriously think God is okay with you locking people in prison until they have paid back what you believe they owe you for their sin?  Can I lovingly challenge you to take a moment and think about how much  you have become like the wicked servant of Jesus story?

Who have you locked in prison?  Be honest. Who was a brother, a spouse, a friend, a leader who’s wronged you and you, in turn, have chosen to make them pay?  Do them and yourself a favor.  Open the prison door you have built for them and say,

“The door of this prison is open, you are free to leave.”