Results of the Work – 3/18/19

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed in the Lord, walking with Him. I had a good day on campus catching up with some of the peeps who have trusted Christ, and  Dom, Alex and Noah each prayed with me to receive Jesus.

Dom and Alex were sitting on a bench under the stairs when I walked into the P.E. Lounge today and they were engaged in a conversation so I did not want to interrupt. They are African American and I had a bad night sleep. Usually I try to approach the students in that lounge with some energy since most are athletes and can be resistant to talk in groups. I didn’t have any energy, so I walked around and finding no one else to speak with in the rest of the lounge or upstairs. I headed out and was a bit past them when I felt prompted to give it a try. I asked if they wanted to do a survey and Alex said she thought she might have done one with someone else, asking if it might have been someone in my group. I smiled and said I am the only one in my group, but we were a regular Bible study and I’d been there since 2002. Dom said ok then. So I sat at their feet and began to ask them questions. They were a bit distracted as they could look right over my head, and everyone walks out past where we sat.  A couple peeps went by but I kept praying God would speak to them and by the end of the Gospel story they were focused. Dom was a big girl dressed in print leggings and had a satin wrap around her head tied in kind of a floral knot and a sweater. She had a round face and full features, cute kid. Alex was a bit darker and had her own elbow length, curly hair and black glasses a small cute face and was dress in black leggings and a sweater. When I asked them what they would say to God to get into Heaven Dom said “Because I tried [in] my life to be with different persons instead to be selfish.” Alex said, “I’m not perfect but I tried to do right in my life.” Dom thought she had a 50/50 change to get into Heaven and then Alex said, “You can never know.” It seemed like Alex had picked up a bit more at church, but neither of them understood the Gospel or really seemed to know how God took away their sins through Jesus. Alex had said she knew how her sins were taken away but did not know the specifics. So I just said,” This is how it works.” Slowly then they began to really tune in as I was praying in my heart and talking at the same time with other words. Both of them began to get very serious expressions as I explained they could be forgiven and washed clean by the blood of Jesus and His righteousness would be to their credit. I explained they needed to receive Jesus and they were then saved by that faith. I asked if they would want to trust in Jesus to be forgiven or thought something else and Alex said, “Trust in Jesus.” and Dom said, “Be forgiven.” So I showed them there was a prayer they could pray and walked them through it. They each said they’d like to pray, so I took out another booklet handing it to Dom showing her the page. They then took them, looked at them and closed them and thanked me. So I suggested if they would pray right now, I would know they had trusted in Christ and then I would keep them in my prayers. I said I would sit a bit apart from them and they agreed and each prayed to receive Jesus. I offered them books when they were done. They both wanted a book, so I gave them each a copy of 20 Things God Can’t Do and wrote “by the Spirit’s power” (after I explained how they could ask God for His power to live the Christian life) in the front of each one. Then I wrote their names and the date and “forgiven” in the front. They were visibly happy to see me write that for each of them. I explained then “This is 100%” writing 100% by the question as to the likelihood they would go to Heaven. “Because if you are trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be your righteousness, how righteous is Jesus? 100% righteous and what’s His righteousness worth, an infinite amount. So there is enough for an old guy like me who had done a lot of things and young women like you haven’t even done much wrong yet.” They grinned at that. I gave them a Bible study too that they could read as they got up to go, and told them I would be praying for them each night for the next year, which really pleased them too. “Thanks for stopping by to talk to us,” Dom said. “Thank you,” Alex chimed in and I said, “Thanks for talking with me,” and we headed our separate ways.

Noah was sitting at the end of the tunnel over from the PE building on a line of chairs. He said I’d asked him before but this time he was willing to do a survey. He had short brown hair, flat to his head and inch long bangs. He looked to be sporting a few days worth of beard, mostly on the underside of his jaw line and a mustache flying solo above it. He had a round, kind face. Nice guy. He had a black and white horizontal stripped long sleeved shirt on that buttoned at the neck and dark jeans. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “Well, serving the Alter since I was 13, influencing other kids my age to join [the church]. I’m a leader. I’d be one of the people that makes other’s faith grow stronger as a Catholic or a Christian.” The likelihood he would go to Heaven he thought was 90%. When I asked him what Jesus had done to take away his sins he said, “He sacrificed Himself.” I agreed and began to explain how that had paid for his sins and the blood of Christ had cleansed him so he was pure inside like God and God could live inside him. He listened closely to everything I said about the atonement and the imputed righteousness of Christ. I explained he could hook up with all that God had done by faith and believing that Jesus was God, had died for his sins and rose from the dead. I showed him the two circles in the booklet, one with God inside the circle and one with God outside the circle of someone’s life. “I’d be in the circle [with God],’ he said when I asked. So I explained he could be forgiven by receiving what Christ had done, trusting in His work by faith and waling him through the prayer to receive Jesus. “When you pray for forgiveness are you thinking in your heart that you’ve been doing the right things and so God would forgive you? Or have you been thinking ‘I know I’ll be forgiven because Jesus died for me’?” I asked. He paused, thinking, and so I said, “Or hadn’t you really thought about it. ” “I never thought about it before,” he said. So I said if he wanted to be forgiven, he could pray for that forgiveness and asked if he’d want to pray to trust in Jesus and he said, “Yeah sure.” He took the booklet then and prayed aloud the prayer in it to receive Jesus. I’d explained the Mass was to remind him Jesus had died and so his sins were forgiven. I talked to him about how anything God was asking him to do He’d give him the power to do it. And that if he trusted in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness, he could be 100% sure he would go to Heaven and explained the parable of the wedding feast in Matt. 22. I gave him a Bible study he liked and 20 Things God Can’t Do and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front along with “by the Spirit’s power.” I said I’d be praying for him and then we stood up to go and I said, “I’ll see ya in Heaven” and “God bless you” as we shook hands. “God bless you too,” he replied and headed down the hall.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and of evangelism today if you had a chance. God truly blessed, even though I was pretty shot.

In Him,

Bob