Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your weekend has been blessed so far and you are recharging for the run into fall. I had a good day on campus on Friday I got couple seeds planted and also Enzo and Andrew each prayed with me to receive Jesus.

Enzo was sitting on a porch area outside the south side of the MAC arts building that looks down on the outside concert area. There is a picnic bench there and he was sitting alone and the college has few students in attendance on Fridays so we were isolated. He had jeans on and a long sleeve nylon shirt like a cross country runner might wear, I never caught the writing straight away to read it, sitting to his left. He had his hair swept up on top in a heavy mop of brown hair and looked very young though our conversation seemed to have a gravitas feel to it somehow. He had sharp features he actually looked like the cartoon character “Speed Racer” with an Italian nose. He said one day he like to own an Enzo Ferrari. He looked like an Italian sports car driver, though small in stature but you gotta be to fit in that car. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said “Why not?” Probably to see how I would respond. I had a professor who once put the Question “Why” on a final exam in philosophy, one student respond “Why not?” and turned it in and he gave them an A. Fortunately I wasn’t in the class. I told him that story. He thought he had a 50/50 shot at getting into Heaven. I went through the Gospel with him and he knew the blood of Jesus took away our sin saying that. I talked to him about the righteousness of Christ and that he died and rose and we were forgiven by faith. I asked if he would want to be forgiven with God inside or thought something else and he said, “Be forgiven with God inside.” So I asked if growing up he had ever placed his trust in what Jesus had done. “When you ask for forgiveness were you trusting believing Jesus had died for you or did you just know the story?” “Just knew the story,” he replied. So I said if he wanted to be forgiven placing his trust in Christ there was a prayer he could pray and walked him through it asking if he’d want to do it. “Yeah,” he replied and he took the booklet and prayed to receive Jesus. He had not shown much emotion and was concentrating on what I said as I spoke. I explained living the Christian life. He did not have his own Bible so I gave him one writing his name and the date and “forgiven” on the inside and showing him the “Where to Turn” section that pairs Bible verses with common questions of need. I explained if he was now trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness the likelihood he would go to Heaven is 100%. I gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do writing “By the Spirit’s Power” in the front. I gave him a Bible Study too. I asked if he had any questions and he said, “Yeah, what if you are doing something you know is wrong but you don’t know how to get out of it. What would your advice be?” I said the Bible teaches that there is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man and I wrote the verse paraphrasing and later in the day sent it to him in an email. Looking for it I took out Bible Promises for You but the verse wasn’t in it. I gave him the book anyway. I said, “The first thing to do was to pray, God promises to give you an escape but I’m not telling you to jump out and do something… having no knowledge of your situation or who might be hurt” I suggested it might be a test. I explained that God might want you to do something difficult because you know it is the right thing to do. I said I would pray for him each day, and he did not need to tell me what the problem was exactly I would just ask God to give him guidance for the “secret thing”. Writing then “Pray for the secret thing.” on the back of a note card. We talked some more and then I got up to leave and he said, “Thank you Bob.” I said he was welcome and it was good to meet him. “Good to meet you too,” he replied and I headed off.

Andrew was the last person I talked to I had been at school several hours and there was almost no one around but he was one of about 4 people in the cafeteria sitting at the counter looking out the window. He said he’d do a student survey; he was a very reserved guy. He looked Latino he had a slightly larger nose, near perfect smile and wore black rimmed glasses. His thick brown hair had a line of white in it, very short on the sides it was combed up in a neat wedge on the top of his head. He really looked like the proverbial common man. He had a nice poly white t-shirt on and tan shorts. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “If God could look back at all the good things… He’d see all the good things that I’ve done. And [as for] the bad things, we make mistakes… we’re sensitive creatures.” He thought he had an 80% chance of going to Heaven. I began to go through the Gospel with him and it turned out he had gone to a “Christian Church” but had not gone in a while. I said God wanted to live inside him and give him eternal life but first He had to make him “His Type” by taking away his sins. I asked what the big thing was that Jesus had done to forgive him. He didn’t have any idea. So I explained the death and cleansing blood of Christ and his imputed righteousness and resurrection. He listened to everything and I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins trusting in Jesus. And he said he would. I said then, “It’s doesn’t seem like you ever had a chance to put all this together before right?” He should his head agreeing, keeping eye contact with me. So I talked him through the prayer and then read, saying, “It says here, ‘Does this prayer express the desire of your heart?’ So would you say it did?” “It actually does,” he replied. “Well, you could pray this right now, not so I would hear you but God would hear and he’d forgive you and you’d know you were going to Heaven, wanna do it?” “Yeah,” he replied. I handed him the booklet then and he prayed to receive Christ. I went on to explain the Christian life asking for the power of the Holy Spirit to give him the strength to do anything God was asking him to do. I gave him a Bible Study too. I gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do writing his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front and “By the Spirit’s Power”. I explained “This is 100%,” pointing at the question. Because if you’re trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be your righteousness, how righteous is Jesus? 100% righteous, what’s His righteousness worth? An infinite amount.” We finished talking and I got up to go saying, “Nice to meet you man.” “Nice to meet you too,” he replied. “God bless you.” “God bless you too,” he replied and I headed off.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance, God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob