Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Hope your day was blessed we had some mild weather for this time of year so a spent a 3 hours doing yard work until an hour or so after dark, wish night didn’t come so early. But I had a good day of work on campus bring some light there and Frank and Mathew each prayed with me to receive Jesus.

Frank was sitting in the hall leading out of the cafeteria against the steps. He looked like a young W.C. Fields might look. in his features, mop of blonde hair, smattering of facial hair trying to come in, a self described nerd, sweet guy wearing tan pants and a shirt. He was in some sadness and seemed very serious. He is the first guy ever to list a computer game achievement “level up every piece of gear in Warfare” when I asked him one thing he wanted to do before he died. When I asked him what he would say to get into Heaven he had a lot to say, “That’s a very good question, umm… It’s ironic, well It’s coincidental that you asked that, I been thinking about that for a while, been in a rocky point regarding my relationship with God. I’ve been angry about that, that’s the reason I don’t have an answer because of the way I feel. I didn’t know if I deserved to go to Heaven because of my feelings. I know the whole bit about if you receive God in your heart but the way I feel…” Of course you don’t go to Heaven because you “receive God into your heart”. You receive Christ when you believe on His name, His name or reputation is that He is God has died for your sins and rose from the dead, this is His power and the power of His name, it pays for your sin and defeats death. Receive means believe on, but on very specific things. I knew he was feeling some hurt so I silently prayed God would give me the right thing to say but felt I needed to go through the Gospel with him first. He thought he had a 50% chance of going to heaven. He told me later (when I asked him if there was something specific I could pray for him over) about his grandpa.  His Grandfather had taken some falls and had such bad dementia he could not be part of their Holiday times as a family as he was in a care facility. It used to surround around going to his grandparents house. The joy of the holidays seemed spoiled to him with the grief surrounding his grandpa. As I went through the Gospel he knew that Christ had died for sin. Right after I explained His imputed righteousness I told him a word picture I’ve told many times to other students about how I could never solve the Rubic Cube and had a roommate who could do it in 18 seconds. I worked for a while on his pestering to get one side blue, then disregarding my work he began to solve it. I asked if there was anything I’d done? Could he use my done side? And he said no you have to do the whole puzzle all at once. I told him God is running the universe and has a Rubic Cube with billions of squares on every side. We get our little corner of blue and think “I got this” Then God in fixing the world messes up our corner and we ask Him, “Couldn’t you just leave my corner alone the way I wanted it? Why did you have to mess with it? And God says, I am doing the entire puzzle all at once, to understand what I am doing you would have understand the entire cube.” And you’d have to reply, “I could never understand that, I didn’t even get the one I tried back in college.” (Frank had said he didn’t get it either). Then God says, “Yes that’s My point.” “Can I write that down, that really speaks to me?” Frank replied. I said here “I’ll write it” and just wrote God’s Rubic Cube Billion sides and corner of Blue and dong the entire puzzle all at once on the front. I went on to explain how he needed to receive Jesus trusting in Him. He said he would want to be forgiven so I asked, “I know you knew some of this but were you trusting in Christ and that He died for your sins to forgive you or did you just know the story?” “I think I just knew the story,” he replied. So I said he could receive God forgiveness trusting in Jesus by asking and talked him through the prayer, and he prayed to receive Christ. We talked for a while after that (I read him the beginning of 2Cor. about comfort) and I gave him the student edition of The Case for Faith, a Rose pamphlet “Bible Promises for Hope and Courage” I explained the spirit filled life writing “By the Spirit’s Power” the date and his name in the front of 20 Things God Can’t Do. I also explained that, if he was now trusting in Christ’s righteousness to be his, the likelihood he was going to Heaven was 100%. He was going to a Bible study that is Semi-Pelagian in some measure (wiht the Chicago Church of Christ, kind of a cult) so I encouraged him to try a different one, explaining again how all the things we do to please God we can only do by the power of His Spirit. He was Methodist. He was in class during ours so I suggested CRU as it is lead by a Free Church pastor, Nate at COD so they have some good things happening now and meet during the day. We talked for some time. “Thanks I think I really needed to hear this.” He said at the end of our conversation. And I blessed him and headed off.

Mathew was sitting in the same place a couple hours later. He had a perfect beard, looked about 21, smallish guy from India with an reasonably heavy accent to match. Nice looking guy his pretty cousin who he ignored came in during our discussion and took her back pack from between us. Then standing about 10 feet away giving the signal she wanted to go, he ignored her. But I checked and he was unconcerned and wanted to hear all I had to say. In the end I gave him the Student edition of The Case for A Creator asking him to tell her I was sorry, hey it has a pretty cover. He was from a Roman catholic background and thought of himself as helpful and that he really wanted to help others. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he smiled warmly and said, I don’t know. I asked what he thought his church would tell him and he said, “Like you know, doing things to help people, even to your fierce enemies to love them and to help them.” I asked if he thought you went to Heaven by doing helpful things. He agreed somewhat but was unsure. He also thought he had a 50/50% chance of going to Heaven. I’m not sure he knew what Jesus had done to take away his sin, when I asked he just nodded so I went on to finish the Gospel and then to to asked if he wanted to be forgiven with God living inside him or if he thought something else. “I would want God inside me,” he replied. So I explained the prayer he could pray asked if he would like to receive forgiveness trusting in Jesus and what he had done on the cross. “Yeah,” he replied. So I said he could pray it silently in his heart and he said, “OK.” and did. So that was great. I explained that if he trusted in Christ’s Righteousness to he could be 100% sure he would go to heaven. I explained a symbolic view of the Mass too. I gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do also writing his name, “By the Spirit’s Power” and when he was forgiven and explaining the idea of living “Inside Out” with God giving him power. He gave me his email to send him some stuff and thanked me and I headed out.

I had some other conversations giving Quinton a sandy haired agnostic, in glasses, with a bar piercing through 2 places in the top of his left ear, the student edition of The Case for Christ. I left him in good spirit’s having said he was “Presently Undecided” about Christianity so hopefully the book with help remove some false obstacles. I’ll pray for him for a while.

So thanks for your prayers for the Ministry and for evangelism if you had a chance. God blessed today. There is one day left at school before thanksgiving.

In Him,

Bob