Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed with a little bit of warmth and sunshine and good things coming down from above. I had a good day on campus and Alex and Jessica each prayed to receive Jesus. Please pray they are blessed and grow in faith. Thanks for your prayers. Their stories are below if you have some time and interest.

Alex was sitting on the ground floor of the Student Services Center lounge. I’d had a nudge to go look along the wall there where there are couch-like chairs. I went up the stairs and found him there. He was on the first chair past Starbucks. Only the carpet was beside him so I sat on the floor and did a survey. He had a winter vest on and a plaid shirt and jeans. Small guy but classic looks with his dark hair swept straight back piled on his head. He had a cheek birthmark some people have in just the right spot. It turned out his mother who had found a 7^th Day Adventist church she liked and he went with her to it.  I said they were right to suggest the Bible nowhere teaches to change the Sabbath Day from Sunday to Saturday. But I said that in Hebrews 4 Jesus is our “Rest”. Sabbath being another name for Rest, we are resting in Jesus. The Bible also teaches that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in believers. So if God lives in you then everyday you go to the Temple. God that lives in you with the “life giving Spirit” of Jesus. So every day you are resting in Him at the Temple so effectively everyday is the Sabbath. So the really the Sabbath is amplified in Christianity to every day because we have entered God’s rest. I said that people who think they keep the Sabbath are wrong anyway. The most basic Sabbath law is to not kindle a fire. But in an internal combustion engine the gas is compressed in the cylinder and when you first turn the key you spark it and there is an explosion. So in doing so you kindled a fire. You just used a more complex tool to do so than a flint stone and some sticks. The car runs on fire. So, everyone broke the Sabbath if they drove to Church. He liked the story. I asked him what he would say to God if he was killed by a bus and stood before Him to get into Heaven. “”That’s a good question,” he replied and repeated it thinking. “I’ve been trying my best to work hard to spread the word to people.” He replied, then qualified it by effectively saying that was the best answer he could think of. He thought he had a 75% chance of going to Heaven. I began to go through the Gospel with him. I said God would need to take away his sin, make him His type—purified, so He could live inside him. That made sense to him. I asked him what the big thing was that Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world. “He was crucified,” he replied. “Right,” I said. I went through how the blood of Jesus cleansed us, Jesus life being worth an infinite amount paid God for the imperfect things we had done that we owed God something perfect for. As I finished saying he needed to trust in what Christ had done by faith I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins or thought something else. “I would want a life filled with Christ,” he said. So I said, “I know you knew the story.” So when you asked to be forgiven were you thinking you’d be forgiven based on what Jesus had done? So was it something you knew and just rolled with it at Church? So when you asked to be forgiven it wasn’t really a part of your thinking?” He replied saying, “That’s where I’m at.” He continued saying how he hadn’t  applied it to himself. “If you’d like to be forgiven you just tell that to God, there’s a prayer you can pray,” and I talked him through it asking if it was, “the desire of your heart?” “Yeah,” he replied. So I said he could pray it right now, I wouldn’t hear you but God would hear and you’d know you were forgiven, wanna do that?” He took the booklet and said, “Thank you, thank you.” And prayed to receive Christ. When he finished I said, “”Great, your sins are forgiven.” I told him then the likelihood he would go to heaven was now 100% trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness. I gave him a Bible Study on the Deity of Christ and Bible Promises for You writing his name and the date and forgiven on the inside saying he could always remember. I and gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and then sensed he had to go. So I said I would pray for him every day until spring and one year after. “Nice to meet you,” I said shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you too,” he replied with a big smile. “I’ll see ya in Heaven,” I said “Yeah I’ll see ya,” he said and headed off.

I felt like I should go over to the Mac Arts building later on in the day so I headed through the tunnel. I came across Jessica sitting at a counter height table overlooking the lounge below where they had just put lights on the tree, she and one other girl the only ones in there otherwise it was empty. She was a pretty girl, oval face and roundish light frame glasses. She had long brown hair and red sweats with a print shirt on under the hoodie. She wanted to visit what she called “her country” of El Salvador, though her family had been up here for over 30 years. I asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven and she said, “Wow that’s hard…” She said she really didn’t know and I asked her if she went to church and she said she did. “What would they say at church is what gets you into Heaven?” I asked. “Having a relationship with God, not just Church or whatever,” she replied. I asked if she had a relationship with God and she said she did so I said, “Would you say that to God then? ‘I have a relationship with you.’” She thought she would so I wrote that down. I asked her the likelihood she would get into Heaven and she said, “50% I still have to work on a lot of stuff.” I went through the Gospel with her saying God had to take away her sins to live inside her and had to purify her asking what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the World. “I really have no idea,” she replied after a moment of thought. I began to tell her how Jesus had died for her and his blood cleansed her from all sin and then explained how God was just and Jesus infinitely valuable life paid God back. “So the real reason God forgives you is He got paid,” I said. “Wow,” she replied. She gave short statements of surprise in places s I told her the gospel. I asked her in the end if she would want to be forgiven or thought something else and she finally said she would want a life with Christ in it. So I said if she wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer she could pray and I walked her through it asking if she’d want to pray it and she said, “I just did as you were going through it.” “Ok, Amen?” I replied. “Amen,” she said. I gave her a copy of Bible Promises for You, writing her name and the date and “forgiven!” on the inside. I gave her the Strobel booklet too and a Bible study explaining a bit. I said I would be praying for her and the likelihood now she would go to Heaven trusting in the righteousness of Jesus was 100%. “So in God’s eyes you get and A. And I told her that Ephesians 1:13 said that as soon as she believed the Spirit entered her and sealed her so God would always be with her. Life is full of streets and God always wants to hold your hand. She liked that idea. We said goodbye and I headed out.

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

In Him,

Bob