When Interceding For Women on Death Row- Think of Prophet Jonah

Intercession:

As a people who stand in the gap for individuals, situations and nations, we need to see people the way God sees them. We need to let go of our personal opinions and ideas about things. This is what happened in the bible with the prophet Jonah. God sent Jonah on a mission to Nineveh. Specifically, God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh to cry out against the sin of the people and to preach. Even though though the Ninevites walked in wickedness God wanted them to know his love and he wanted to give them a chance to repent.

But Jonah disregarded the Lord’s request and got on a ship headed for Tarshish, instead he was fleeing from God (Jonah 1:3) Running from his assignment made Jonah end up being thrown overboard and eaten up by a fish. While inside the fish he repented and God had the fish spit him out. Later Jonah tells the Ninevites about God and interceded for them. Nineveh repented and God had mercy on them. This made Jonah very angry. Jonah wanted to see the wrath of God express on Nineveh, but God had compassion and mercy and wanted to save them.

Jonah more than likely believed lies about Nineveh, himself and God and this what caused him to miss his calling to be used as a vessel of hope,love and life. He knew God was s

low to anger and full of love which is why he fled to Tarshish. (Jonah 4:2) But what Jonah knew about God did

not line up with what he wanted to see happen to the Ninevites.

When God commissions us we are not to let our personal feelings impact on what we are being sent to do. We need to be firm and stable in our connection with God and other people. This is important, so that we can pray without letting our own problems derail us from the purposes and plan of God

Unless we allow God to renew our minds we about our own personal identity we are likely to have thoughts from our own thoughts and mind. Isaiah 55 v 8-9 says, “For your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor your ways my ways, declares the LORD, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Until we have allowed the Holy Spirit to change our thinking, we will have poor results!

Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you. Isaiah 49:15b

Isaiah 49:15  Good News Translation (GNT)

¹⁵ So the Lord answers,“Can a woman forget her own baby
and not love the child she bore?Even if a mother should forget her child,
I will never forget you.

The women on death row are an ignored and forgotten group. You cannot find a dated collective listing for the women on death row group on-line. These are lists but they are outdated or incomplete. The list that i created was  painstakingly made through a tedious process of checking and cross checking death row inmate locator’s through out America’s death row prisons. This is very telling; I assure you that they have been forsaken, forgotten and ignored. Suzanne Basso (below) was the last female to be executed on America’s death row.  On February 5th, 2014, she became the 14th women killed on Texas death row.

Death by lethal injection was her punishment for allegedly masterminding the torture and brutal murder of a mentally impaired man. It was said that Basso lured the man from New Jersey to Texas under the pretense of wanting to marry him. Soon after signing up to receive his social security benefits, it is claimed that Basso had an army of people torture and torment the man to death.

My question is why did Suzanne Basso go to her death in a wheel chair? The truth is she was a vegetable paralyzed  from her waist down, according to news reports.  I wonder, since she did not enter prison with any paralysis, why  it is reported  that Basso became paralyzed while she was imprisoned, at the hand of a jail guard. If a prisoner comes into institutions to get a beat down by those whose job it is to administer justice- what’s the point of capital punishment? If by the time the inmate is to be executed, they are paralyzed and mentally impaired, what will be accomplished by killing them? It is totally inhumane, repulsive and inherently wicked to think that someone who came into the prison system whole, left it suffering, bruised, and broken. Know that every spirit of infirmity was  upon them when they were ordered to be killed on death row. Think about it, no compassion, no forgiveness, and no mercy; just murder for murder, and then we do it grossly through lethal injection.  Ponder, the  many innocent lives have been taken  because we feel that this is a humane practice and an effective response to attain justice.

The lives of the women on death row can be redeemed.  Jesus says…even if a mother forgets her child, I will never forget you. (Isaiah 49:15b) . His love for them is unconditional. I want the women on death row to know that nothing can desperate them from His love for them.

God’s Everlasting Love is describe in Romans 8:31-39

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”^[a]37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If the women on death row will turn to Jesus He can and will raise them up.

Teresa Lewis was executed on  Virginia death row despite thousands of appeals to save her was a good example of someone who Christ redeemed.  Here are her last words:“Man wants me to die, but I’m not worrying over this, I’m trusting Jesus,” she wrote. She urged the prisoners to turn to Jesus promising, “He will forgive you of all your sins and He will bring you into His loving arms.”

Standing in the Gap

Albert Camus Sketched by Petr Vorel

“For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists.”  ALBERT CAMUS, Resistance, Rebellion and Death

Suzanne Basso executed on Texas Death Row 2-6-14 by Lethal Injection

Today Suzanne Basso became the 14^th person to die on Texas Death Row. At  5 am, when I arouse for intercessory prayers on the Three Cord Prayer Line, she was remembered by me.  I prayed for her salvation, I prayed that in her grief that she would call upon the name of Jesus. It is our duty to stand in the gap for those lost in darkness.

 In Acts 26 v 18 Apostle Paul is giving an account of His assignment to King Agrippa. He says that it is Jesus Himself who has sent him to redeem the Gentiles. Paul was assigned to ¹⁸ To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Likewise, I prayed for the eyes of Suzanne Basso to be opened this morning. I prayed that she’d turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, I cried out for her repentance and for her to receive forgiveness for her sins, so she would have the inheritance of those sanctified by faith and receive the promise of eternal life. It is our assignment as well; as believers, we are to know that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus came for the ungodly and it is God’s desire that no one should perish but that all would come into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Before the year 2014 began, the Lord commissioned me to stand in the gap for the women on death row. He told me to get my church’s women’s ministry to pray without ceasing, for the women on death row. The scripture He gave me was Acts 5 v 12 “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him,” which became the name for this ministry “Praying Without Ceasing: A Prison Ministry for Women on Death Row”

In the bible, God was opposed to the sinfulness of the Israelites and was seeking to destroy them. In Psalms 106:23 He says, “Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.”  We like Moses, are to stand in the gap for others, and the women on death row are no exception.

I am only an intercessor, and we know that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availed much but, the prisoners on death row need the army of God to stand in the gap for their salvation; any effective standing in the gap has to involve the church. When I received this mandate, I moved quickly to set up this ministry which involves scripture cards, but I hesitated to inform my Pastors because I was waiting to hear more directives from the Lord, but now with the execution of death row’s Suzanne Basso, it is confirmed that I need to quickly alert the church. As I gather up the names and addresses of the 59 women remaining on death row and as I gather stamps, envelopes and salvation cards. I intend to send His word. I will continue to stand in the gap and pray for the salvation of those who have done the most unspeakable crimes. Because, “when God  finds no man to intercede, He will use His own arm to bring salvation to Him, And His righteousness to uphold Him.” (Isaiah 59:16)

Isaiah 6 verse 8  inspires me, it says” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

In the name of Jesus,

Intercessor Abu