Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and you are feeling the Love of God. I had a good day on campus Jacob prayed with me to receive Jesus. I spent some time helping a new Christian, Jesus [hey sues], understand salvation by faith a bit more. He had been very dissatisfied with the Roman Cath. church but kept attending to keep his parents from freaking out. I gave him the Rose publications “Following Jesus” & “Who I am in Christ” and a promise book for his girl friend, Meghan, who he was leading closer to Christ. He seemed to be trusting in his good works at the beginning by his answers. But as often happens by the time I’d finished he’d agreed it was only by faith and that he needed to trust in Christ’s righteousness not his own. So he did not pray with me but coupled with some other experiences in the evangelical churches of friends he seemed well on his way to growing in faith.

Jacob was sitting in the hall of the BIC building on the third floor waiting the day out until his next Friday class. He had gone to SIU last year but decided to save some money at COD. He was a really amicable guy, had a bit of a chin beard and black frame glasses, bit of a double chin short sandy hair with short bangs stout, not fat. He was tall. He had on a knit sweater and jeans. I asked him what he would say to God if He asked “Why should I let you into Heaven?” and he said, “”Umm that’s a tough question. I guess because of the kind of person I am I’d try to go over the things in my life. It’s a time of reflection to go over the good and the bad.” He thought he had about an 80% chance of going to Heaven saying he did confirmation in the Catholic church and had attended regularly until his Junior year and now it was hit and miss as he had gotten so busy with school. He listened attentively to the Gospel but struggled to say what it was Jesus had done to take away his sins. As I went through the Gospel point by point he would say, “I see.” or “Oh.” as if he was hearing the explanation for the first time. As I came to the end he said he wanted to be forgiven when I offered him the option to do so. I asked him if he believed Jesus was God had died for his sins and rose from the dead. “Yeah I do,” he said slowly as if thinking about it. I said if he wanted to place his trust in that there was a prayer he could pray that would be receiving God’s forgiveness. I talked him through it and said. “You know as you grow up you are just kind of in the Church and roll with it and you don’t really think about it. If you do something wrong, you just think that you are basically a good person and God will forgive you because He is a good and forgiving God.” He agreed that was just where he’d been at. I explained that when you get older you have to make up your own mind which way you are going and what you will trust in and this is like that placing your trust in Jesus and what He has done to save you. So I said if he wanted to he could pray to tell God that was the way he wanted to go with his life, trusting in Christ.  “Ah sure. Yeah,” he said deciding. And he took the booklet and prayed to receive Christ. I explained then he could read in the book of John. He had a Bible, a big one and a personal one. I gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do and wrote “Ask by the Spirit” and explained how everything God was asking him to do He would give him the power to do by changing him. I gave him a Bible study too. He said he’d try to drop by the Bible study so I hope he will. I said I would be praying him through the spring and for one year after and he was really happy about that, to have someone praying for him.  I got up to go we’d talked for a long time. “Thanks you it was nice to talk to you,” he said. “Yeah, great to talk to you too man,” I said and we parted, he was a great guy.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance God blessed again and I had some joy.

In Him,

Bob