Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you had a good day walking in the light of God’s love for you. I had a good day on campus. Though it seems to be getting harder to find someone sitting around I have not spoken to, Katie prayed with me to receive Jesus today. I’d be grateful if you’d pray for her life in Christ to be blessed. Her story follows if ya got some time.

 Katie walked out of the food preparation area and sat down at a table and began to dig into her subway sandwich. She had silver gray hair pouring out past her shoulders from under a ball cap. She wore black skinny jeans that were shredded up on the front and a black shirt covered in rhinestones with a jacket over it. She had not put on makeup where her mask had been, but as we talked while she was eating I could see she was a pretty girl with a bright white smile. A smallish nose and a golden base around her eyes. Her eye shadow was green and she had pointed dashes painted off the edges of her eyes. She had long clear pointed nails, and looked like an art student, which proved to be true though she was taking general education courses. She wanted to travel. I asked the question, “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus. So you’re dead and you stand before God and He asks, “Why should I let you into Heaven?” What would you say?” She said, “It has something to do with faith.” I said that was true, but really Heaven wasn’t just a place. It was the presence of God, so we had to be changed to fit in there. “The philosophical word for it is ontology. Our being does not match God’s being. Like you are breathing air and you need to learn to breathe water. But you could not learn that. You’d have to be transformed into a different being.”  “Doesn’t everyone know deep down they deserve to go to Hell?” she replied. I agreed we all deserved it.  “For me I was raised by a pastor, it was constant rules and guilt. Existential fear.” She went on to say her parents did not want her to go to school but wanted her to take a minimum wage job so she would be dependent on a guy she married and stay home where he would earn the money. I had explained at one point that it was possible that her father’s placing all the rules he had on her might have been because he loved her and was afraid she would go to Hell.  But that sometimes people don’t speak the language another person needs to hear as love. I said people are all different and hear love differently at times. But I’m not sure where it fell in the conversation. I asked her what she thought the likelihood was she would go to Heaven. She said it was 50/50. I explained that the rule of Christianity according to Jesus is that you love God and love your neighbor as yourself. All the rules are supposed to be because you are trying to be loving. I explained that if she got up to go to the bathroom and her x-boyfriend walked in with a gun and walked up to me and said “Where is the girl who was sitting here?” I would tell him you went out the door the other way. And that would be the loving thing to do for you and for him,, so he would not have shot you and had to carry that through life. I began to explain the Gospel to her how God took away our sin with the Blood of Jesus and how His righteousness was to our credit. I told her that God adopted us and gave us all these things: The sacrifice for our sins, the blood that cleansed us, and the righteousness of God that surrounds us like a robe.  I explained she was saved by faith, in that Jesus was God, had died for her sins and rose from the dead. I said that if she wanted to be forgiven for her sins, trusting in Jesus, there was a prayer she could pray and I explained it. That she was asking God to live inside her and forgive her and make her the person He wanted her to be. Then I didn’t ask her to pray, but went to the back and explained living by the Spirit’s power to give her the strength to do anything God was asking her to do. She could ask Him to transform her and she would be able to do it. But if she was not ready to ask God to change her to do something, she could ask Him to change her into the kind of person who would want to ask Him to change her. God does everything, whatever we come across we just give it back to God. It says in James you do not have because you do not ask. “So Just Ask.” Then I turned back to the prayer and asked “So do you think you would want to ask God for forgiveness?” And she said, “Yes.” I said she could pray it silently so only God would hear, and she prayed to receive Jesus. And I was so grateful she did. I gave her 20 Things God Can’t Do writing her name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front (and “Just Ask” on a couple pages that directed her to do things). I also gave her Bible Promises for You and a Bible study on ways Jesus claims to be God. She said, “You don’t have to give me any books.” But I explained that people gave me money for books to give to students. “I’m sorry I have to run to class,” she said packing up to go. I said no worries and that I would pray for her for the next year each night. She was grateful and headed out to English class.

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

In Him,

Bob