Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Thanks for your prayers for the ministry or if you had a chance for me today as I kicked around campus. I had a great day Hashika and Raven, two black girls prayed to receive Jesus, and had some good conversations too. Yesterday it seemed like little happened though I did walk some nominal Christians through the Holy Spirit and the atonement. I have to say I’m a bit scared for the Church in the US. I know God is leading me so my contacts on campus are not a sociological sampling, but I talk to a lot of “Christian” peeps who seem to have no real awareness that Jesus has paid for their sins and they should be grateful.
I bumped into Natalie again today [having talked to her earlier in the week] after only getting through a bit of the gospel with her b4 she ran to class the last time. We talked a while and I asked her if she read the booklet. She hadn’t so I finished explaining the gospel to her. She had never asked for her sins to be forgiven because of what Jesus had done on the cross, and didn’t pray in the name of Jesus. I explained to her in an example I use commonly, “It’s like if you are out at a club with a bears shirt on and you run into some famous player, say Brian Urlacher, and he says, ‘Hey you got a bears shirt on you want a free ticket to my sky box?’ (This could actually happen to her probably she’s pretty cute, so it worked in her head.) You say, ‘sure’. So he says that all you have to do is show up at the gate, say Brian Urlacher has left a ticket for you and your name and you’ll get a ticket to go in.’ But you have to have the faith to go get the ticket and show up, you have to believe he is not just jerking you around. Then when you get there you say your name, but what if they said, ‘Fine who left you the ticket?’ But you won’t say the name of the person who gave you the gift, then they would say, ‘Well your name isn’t enough we need the name of the guy who left it for you.'” I said, “God has provided a gift of the sacrifice of Christ, but if you won’t claim it in His name, in the name of Jesus, you have not picked it up.”
“I like your analogy,” she said, “that makes sense no one has ever put it to me that way b4.” And we talked about her background as a catholic in CCD, her folks are Polish and she speaks it fluently enough to go to Polish mass sometimes.
I recited the prayer she would find in the booklet I gave her, she had it in her notebook then kind of risked alienating her a bit and said, “The thing is, the cross was an awful payment for your sins and you have never even thanked Him for it.” And then talked about if later in life one of her kids won an academy award, “You know how many of them thank their mothers and if they didn’t thank you you’d be like, hey who drove you to all those drama practices and went to all your plays?” That seemed to register too. She had to go to class but I asked her, do you believe that Jesus has paid for your sin so that you can go to heaven? She said she did. I encouraged her to think about praying and thanking Him and I think it had some traction in her heart.
I used the free ticket analogy later in talking to Raven who did a survey with me and actually said one thing she would like to have b4 she died was to know God better. She was a short cute kid, played basketball. So I had her meeting Derrick Rose at a club and he had her go to the stadium for the ticket. She prayed with me to receive Christ. For most of the time we were talking her friend Hashika was sitting across from her at the table in the Cafeteria on her smart phone talking with an earpiece. At some point she had gotten off though and was listening to the gospel. When Raven prayed I realized she had tuned in and asked her, after I had given Raven a Bible Study and the student edition of The Case for Christ, and explained the Holy Spirit to her, if she wanted a copy of the booklet. She said she did and I went through the gospel a bit more for her and showed her the prayer and she prayed to receive Jesus too. I gave her More than a Carpenter and a Bible study also. They were both pretty pleased when I left and I promised to pray for them each night through the end of the school year and all next year.
So I will keep Hashika and Raven in my prayers and pray that God draws Natalie into a genuine relationship with Himself. Please pray God works in their hearts and the seed planted will grow to solid faith and provoke them to love and good works, [Hebrews 10:24].
Thanks for your prayers.
In Him,
Bob