Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed with all good things contributing to peace and rest in the Lord. The world in many ways is obviously beyond our ability to affect it. We might as well trust in Jesus and His power. I had a good day on campus and Eric prayed with me to receive Christ. Matteo was close but had not prayed in several years so I will pray for him. He had a horrible break in his leg that took him off the football field and now he wished to be a coach. Eric’s story is below if you have time, please pray for him.

Eric was sitting in the Science building on a bench on the second floor facing north. He was up for doing a survey just killing time it seemed. He had a hoodie on under a Grey leather jacket, blue jeans and dark sneakers. He had a neatly trimmed beard and a shorter brown hair haircut, making straight short bangs on his forehead. He thought he had a survey he’d gotten by email and I said this was different and I asked him the big question and said I could tell him the answer based on the Bible. After that he thought he’d like to take the survey. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “It’s… part of it’s not based on character but how your actions have impacted everyone. It’s better to know what people have thought about you through your lifespan. Faith has a part to do with it as well and also the impact you have had.” I said that Jesus had said that to love the Lord with all your heart soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself was all the law and the prophets so that people felt loved would seem to be important. He thought Lutheran and Calvinistic churches were more about faith and it seemed he had been to Catholic school but wasn’t in church. He knew Jesus had died and it took away our sin. He seemed hard for me to get a read on and he had the facial expression most of the time that felt like (to me) he had heard it all before. But I have had to tell myself as I go through the Gospel that I don’t know what people are thinking. I know need to trust in God’s power through His word so I rested in that and kept reading Bible verses. I asked him if he wanted to be forgiven for his sins trusting in Jesus or thought something else like Islam or Buddhism. And I was surprised a bit when he said, “I would want to be forgiven for my sins. So I said that if he would like to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and I talked through it and asked if it was the desire of his heart. “Yeah,” he replied and so I said he could pray it quietly or silently and know he was forgiven asking if he would want to do that right now. He said he would and I handed him the booklet and he checked if he needed to pray aloud and said, “No silently.” And he prayed to receive Jesus. I explained the Christian life to him living “inside out” by the Spirit’s power and he thanked me. I gave him Bible Promises for You writing his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I gave him a Bible Study on the Deity of Christ. I showed him The Case for Christianity Answer Booklet asking if he thought it would be valuable to him and he thought it would so I gave him that. I thanked him for talking to me and he said sure and I got up to go and said, “God bless you.” “God bless you too,” he replied and then said “Thank you.” I wandered a bit through the rest of the science buildings but it was largely empty and the couple people I asked were not interested. I remembered I had not offered him assurance of salvation based on the survey question he’d said he thought he had an 80% chance of getting into Heaven. So as I passed him on the way out I said, “Remember that question how likely is it you will go to Heaven, I wanted to tell you that now it’s 100% trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be your righteousness.” He thanked me again, smiling. I headed out down the hall over the bridge into the other buildings.

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

In Him,

Bob