Volume 65 December 2026-January 2026 : Mokanoki
The jail cell is open
Author : Russ Molosiwa
When Jesus began his ministry, He stood in the synagogue at Nazareth and read from the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord`s favour” (Luke 4: 18 – 19).
The terminology used in this passage paints a picture of someone who visits a prison and finds all doors open but prisoners still inside.
Jesus said He came to proclaim freedom to the prisoners.
The prison doors were open but the prisoners were still sitting inside.
They were glad, like so many individuals and nations today, that the door of deliverance was open.
They were proud the door was open. But they were still sitting inside on their prison cots.
Why? Because prisons provide free food. When you`re in jail, your clothes are paid for. Showers are provided, and in other countries you can sit and watch the world move around you on cable TV.
I am not sure if that is the case in Botswana.
Too many people are wasting their time today as prisoners in their own cells.
Christ`s words of freedom may be taped to their living room walls.
But so many are sitting in their cells with the jail door standing wide open, enslaved to the spirit of oppression that held them bound before accepting deliverance.
The word gospel means “good news, good report, good herald or good information”.
The good news of the kingdom is that Jesus converts our deliverance into freedom.
When a man is born again, the Spirit of God re-creates his inner man and makes His abode in him.
But the freedom that comes to our mind and actions are left completely to us.
We are free to walk out of our jail cells, and we are free to stay in our cells, because according to Christ`s gospel, no one is automatically set free. In your oppression you have chosen to sit in your jail cell and watch TV.
You bought that VCR, and now your new church is the video store.
The great Jewish apostle Paul writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1)
As the church, nations and individuals travel the road to responsibility today, it is important to understand that many of us have been conditioned by our former oppression. Our social, economic and religious conditioning ties us to an invisible stake (like the dog in the experiment), which keeps us from moving forward in the things of God.
The jail cell is open but there we sit, bound and oppressed.
This is why Paul tells us to stand firm against the conditioning to renew our minds from our old ways of thinking. Ke ama fela ke sare ke feditse. Ke sutela thapelo. ENDS