Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and your car is out of the slush somewhere. I hear it is even snowing in California. I had a good day on campus Wednesday and Rico prayed with me to receive Jesus. Please pray he grows in his faith. Thanks for your prayers. His story starts below if ya want to spend the time.

 Rico was sitting in the sofa chairs along the wall in the Big Gym size lounge of the SSC. He had a black watch cap on and a black zip up lightweight jacket, brown pants and brown lace-up casual boots. He wore a tie around his neck so he might have had a speech class or something to present at school. He looked like an everyman kind of guy, clean shaven diamond shaped face he was Latino. I asked him if he died what he would say to God to get into heaven. “That is hard, these are thinking questions.” He thought for a minute and said, “Because I lived my life as He would have wanted me to have.” I asked him the likelihood he would go to Heaven and he said “40%, I’m not too confident of that.” He said he went to Catholic Church every Sunday. I went through the Gospel with him and I explained that God wanted to live inside him but would have to purify him of sin so he would match God and he said that made sense. So I asked him what the big thing was that Jesus had done to take away his sins and the sins of the world. “He died on the cross,” he replied. I said, “He died for you, right,” and began to explain how Christ’s blood cleansed us and also was a payment to God for our sins. I told him Jesus had earned the righteousness of God and that righteousness could be ours by being adopted by God. I explained this was the symbolism in the Mass, the wafer His body and the wine His blood and he agreed that it was. I said he needed to receive this by faith. “Not Just know the story from going to Church but that that’s what you put your trust in so that if someone asked why should God let you into Heaven you’d say, ‘Because Jesus died for me. That would mean you had faith in Jesus. And the Bible says it’s by grace you’ve been saved by faith.” I asked if he wanted to be forgiven or thought something else. He said something like, Forgiven with Jesus. I said then there was a prayer he could pray and explained it. I asked if he thought it was the desire of his heart and he read it again and agreed it was. I said he could pray it silently and be forgiven, “Wanna do that?” “Yeah sure I’ll give it a go,” he replied and he prayed to receive Jesus. When he’d prayed I said the likelihood now he would go to Heaven was 100% trusting in Jesus’ righteousness to be his righteousness. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I told him that Ephesians 1:13 says that as soon as he trusts in Christ the Spirit would enter him and seal him and always be with him.  I explained living by the Spirit’s power and told him faith was a gift and if he needed more faith he could ask God for that. I gave him a Bible Study and The Case for Christ Answer Booklet to introduce him to Strobel. I also gave him a Bible Study and explained it a bit. I told him I would pray a Bible verse for him each day from now until Spring and one year after. I said, “Nice to meet you,” and he reached out and chook my hand. “Nice to meet you too,” he replied. I got up and said, “I’ll see you in heaven and he said “Ha yeah,” with a smile and I headed off.

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

In Him,

Bob