Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and you had your heart at rest in Him. I had a good day on campus and Znyia and Gianluca [john luke a] prayed to receive Jesus. So that was great. I’d be grateful if you might pray they would be blessed in their new commitment to Christ as their Savior and God by faith. Their stories are below if you have some time.

Znyia was sitting at a table. There is a hallway on the edge of the Student Services Center lounge on the second floor where I came upon her. The table was across the hall from where there are commonly lines of tables for college recruiters on some days, campus groups on others. She sat at the end of the table looking at her phone. She was cute, oval faced wearing a parka, the hood of which covered the back of her head.  She’s a black girl, petite, had a pug nose and her hair was pulled straight back but seemed untreated. She was pretty reserved and when I asked her if she wanted to do a student survey she said, “I did that already.” I replied, “This is a little different,” I said and animated a bit. “The big question is: You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus. So you’re dead. And you stand before God and He says, ‘Why should I let you into Heaven?’ What would you say?” She wasn’t sure what she’d say. So I said, “Would you like to know what the Bible says is the answer to that question and listen to some verses?” She said she would so I went to my knees at the side of the table she sat at the head of and began to go through the Gospel with her. I explained God wanted to live inside her but to do so He would have to take away her sin. I asked her, “So what is the big thing that Jesus does to take away the sins of the world?” “He was a sacrifice,” she replied. “Right I said and began to explain how it all worked. I got her to smile a few times but she seemed a bit road weary or just reserved. I asked her if she would want to be forgiven for her sins trusting in what Jesus had done or thought something else. “I would want to be forgiven,” she said softly. She had said she had gone to church when she was much younger. I said then that there was a prayer she could pray and talked her through it saying after, “It says here: Is this prayer the desire of your heart?  So would you say that it is?” “Yeah,’ she replied with a bit of a nod. So I said “If you wanted to you could pray it silently right now. I wouldn’t hear you but God would hear. And you would know you were forgiven and going to Heaven. Would you want to do that?” “Yeah” she said softly again. And then I think she said smiling, “I’ve seen the prayer before, I’ve never prayed it though.” Or else she said she’d never prayed before, she spoke too softy to make it out but the smile was clear. Then taking the booklet, “I just read it?” “Yes,” I said. And she prayed to receive Jesus. I gave her Bible Promises for You and wrote her name and the date and forgiven in the front. I gave her a Bible study too. She wasn’t sure about taking The Case for Christ Answer Booklet but I said it was ok if she never got to it and she said ok. I told her,  “The Bible says in Ephesians 1:13 as soon as you believe, the Holy Spirit enters you and seals you. So He will never leave you.” Then I showed her the question on the survey, “How likely is it that you are going to Heaven when you die?” Saying, “The answer to this is 100% because trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be your righteousness, in God’s eyes you get an A.” I told her I would pray for her each day one of the prayers of Paul, “Like that your heart would be encouraged and knit together in love {with others] or that you will be pure then peaceable gentle and reasonable full of mercy and good fruit. [which is James]” “I appreciate that,” she said warmly. I explained the Christian life to her living inside out by the Spirit’s power. I said, “I will see you in Heaven and I’m really old so I will get there first. And when you are dying if you are scared to go to Heaven you can think, ‘I’m going to see that old biker Bob and he will show me around Heaven.’” “She smiled and said, “Thank you Bob.” “No problem,” I said with a grin. “Thanks for talking with me.” No problem,” she replied smiling, “Have a great day.” I thanked her and headed out.

I found Gianluca sitting in the cafeteria alone at a table. He was 5 foot 5 and had a mop of curly hair and young sharp features, good looking kid. He said his name was Italian but people pronounced it different ways. He’d been to Italy once. It turned out his father went to a church I knew of and he’d meet some biker guys I knew that used to go there. I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven if he died. He said, “I haven’t done anything warranting not sending me into Heaven.” When I asked him the likelihood he would get into Heaven, he thought he’d have a 50/50 chance saying, “I just began reading the Bible. In Heaven I’d probably have a better understanding.” He said he was going through the Bible Chronologically because he really liked History. After the first 15 chapters of Genesis he was now in Job. I began to go through the Gospel with him and he knew Jesus had died to take away his sins. He was engaged and attentive to what I explained telling him of the Blood of Christ cleansing him. I explained Christ’s infinitely valuable life being a payment for all the imperfect things we had done to damage God’s possessions, for which he was now owed a restorative payment of something perfect. As I finished I asked if he would like to be forgiven for his sins trusting I what Jesus had done or if he thought something else. “Be forgiven,” he replied. I said if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and talked him through it then asked if it was the desire of his heart. “Yeah,” he replied and I said he could pray it silently and only God would hear. “Wanna do it?” “Yeah,” he said again and he prayed to receive Jesus. I explained living the Christian life by the Spirit’s power saying when he’d hear a sermon they would probably tell him something he should be or do. It might be something he thought was good but likelihood is he’d forget it by Wednesday. That didn’t mean it had no affect on him or he did not know something new that would change him. But if he wanted to in that moment he could ask God to change him in that way. Then if he forgot by Wednesday it wouldn’t matter because God by the Holy Spirit would have already began to work on him on Sunday. He thought that was a great idea. I told him now trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness the likelihood he would go to Heaven was 100%. I said I would be praying for him one of the prayers of Paul or lines from the Bible each night. 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, showing him a passage in Job where God walked on the water as Christ did. I then gave him the longer book The Case for Christianity Answer Book, saying because he liked history there was some chapters in it he might like. He was hesitant to take it but I told him I bought them used from Thrift Books so they were not that expensive. We talked some more and he thanked me and I said I would see him in Heaven or around and headed out.

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

In Him,

Bob