Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you had a great day walking with the Lord. It rained a lot here but the Lord blessed on campus.  Ray and Marco each prayed with me to receive Jesus. Chloe committed to Christ saying she’d pray later. She hadn’t understood any of the Gospel but had been attending a Bible study of some kind. Unfortunately, she had to run to class as I quickly explained the Gospel to her. She hadn’t understood it at all. We’d just started to talk and she was willing to take a booklet before class began. She was a cute, short girl with blonde hair, an oval face pointed chin .and asked for another booklet for her boyfriend Juan. So I am hopeful when I see her again she will have prayed to receive Christ.

Ray was sitting on the edge of the lounge outside student activities (the lounge below where we have Bible Study.) He was a little more slight and shorter than me in build and had a wide flat nose, sharp chin and jaw line with a bit of facial hair lip and chin. He wore a gray cross country shirt from high school and had ripped up jeans on. His afro piped up a bit into braids on top. Good looking’ kid, reserved. He was cool. He said his Grandfather was a preacher, after agreeing to do a student survey. After his Grandfather had died he’d stopped going to Church. I asked him what he would say if God asked Him why he should be let into Heaven and he said, “That’s a good one… Because you love Him?” he guessed. He didn’t say he loved Him so I wasn’t sure how to take it. He knew Jesus had died to forgive sins. I went through the Gospel with him and he stopped me in the middle and said, “I know you probably don’t mean to say this but it seems like you are saying you could believe and just do whatever you want.” “Well I’m not finished yet,”  I replied. But I went on to explain if someone said they believed God had died for them, to save them, and then did evil things it would be realistic to think they were lying. After all your mom has done for you if you never helped her at all or showed her any appreciation I would not believe you if you said you loved her. He agreed that was true. I said that if you knew someone for 20 years who said 20 years before they’d become a Christian, but then saw no change in their life, and they were still bad, you’d assume they were lying. People can make big mistakes though and have a bad day where they fall into a sinful life they left behind too, “I’m not saying people can’t make mistakes.” I went on to explain the rest of the Gospel and asked if he wanted to be forgiven, trusting in Jesus or thought something else. “The first one,” he replied. So I said that if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and I talked him through it. I asked if he would want to pray silently to receive Jesus. “Yeah,” he said, slowly dragging out the word. I handed him the booklet and he prayed to receive Jesus. He went to hand it back then but I said he could keep it, having used it to explain the Holy Spirit to him a bit. He asked for some verses on faith. So I gave him a Bible Promise book. There wasn’t a specific chapter for faith in the one I gave him, so I gave him some others. I wrote his name, the date and “Forgiven” in the front and gave him a Bible study to read too. “Your Grandfather is looking down right now and saying, My Man” I told him and he grinned and laughed a bit and said, “Yeah” and thanked me. Then, saying I would be praying for him, I headed out.

Marco was sitting on one of the stone walls outside the PE building. He had a couple of days growth of beard, a pointed nose and sharp outline to his long face, deep set eyes and swept back, straight, light brown hair. He said he’d gone to church a couple times with his mom as a kid but he didn’t know what kind it had been. It was obvious he had never heard the Gospel before. He had on a t-shirt, dark gray jeans and brown leather high-tops. It was sprinkling a bit so I did not know how long we’d last. I kept praying the rain away thinking about Elijah. I got hit with the occasional drop as we talked. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong.” ‘You mean nothing really bad, nobody’s perfect. ‘Right” he agreed. I knew he’d know nothing of the Gospel so I went straight through and he was really interested to understand what God had done. I explained the short time we have here compared to eternity where God would glorify us. I said he could be forgiven, believing in all I had explained to him. That Jesus was God, had died for his sins and rose from the dead. He thought he believed and could trust in that “But is that enough?” he asked. The theological answer is it is enough if God is at work in the hearer and enters them with His Spirit by faith Who seals them. All the Bible’s analogies are written that way, dead one moment-alive the next. No one is half alive and then finally totally alive. It is a zero-sum game. But it seemed like Marco was asking if he had enough faith. I explained that you have to take the first step on the ladder and with God’s power you do that and you’ll climb higher, you will depend on Him more. Sometimes you won’t like what He is doing and you’ll have to ask for more faith. He had said he wanted to have a family and so I talked about the day I got married. Now decades later I realize I could not have known then what it would take to stay married or known what my wife and I would each become, how we might change. But I learned to trust my wife more and more and now I would trust her with anything and would do anything she asked me to do for her. But if you tell God you believe, “If you die tomorrow you will be in Heaven, it is enough,” I concluded. He decided to trust in Christ saying, “I can do that.” And he prayed to receive Him. It was raining a few more drops. He had to go so I gave him, The Case for Christianity Answer Book, “Following Jesus” the Rose publication and a Bible, writing his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front trying not to let the rain hit it, after I showed him the “Where to Turn” section. I told him my email was in the booklet and then gave him a Bible Study that has my email on it too and shook his hand. It started to pour. I shook his hand again as he thanked me and encouraged him to ask me anything. He headed to the parking lot and I to the building. He thought he’d come to the Bible study. Please pray he does if God would have me pour into him more.

So thanks for your prayers for the Ministry and for Evangelism today if you had a chance. I was wiped out from a long, tiring night the night before, but God used me today anyway.

Love in Christ,

Bob